i DREAM, i DARE, i DO

Our legacy, our liability, our future

2011-12-28T15:15:00.083-05:00

Can we solve a problem without acknowledging and analyzing the problem before we attempt solving it? Let me put in other words. How a woodpecker find rotten wood that might have its food- the wood boring insects, grubs and ants? Can a woodpecker survive if we ask it not to "drum" or "peck" the dead wood? The topic I'll discuss below have a lot to do to these questions, seemingly unrelated. I'll come back to the woodpeckers later.

Yesterday lower house of Indian parliament, popularly known as "Lok Sabha", passed (mostly) the government version of Lokpal bill. It is yet to be passed in the upper house, Rajya Sabha. Many think the bill is too weak to have any impact, while many others think that it will increase corruption, instead of minimizing it. On the other hand many believe it as a total betrayal by our elected representatives and parliament considering its promise (formally referred as "parliamentary resolution" or "sense of the house") made in the floor of the parliament to make and pass a strong lokpal bill that will include (i) Citizen's Charter, (ii) lower bureaucracy under Lokpal through an appropriate mechanism, and (iii) establishment of Lokayukta in the States. Today Anna Hazare ended his fast in Mumbai. Many of his followers are disappointed. They think the fight against corruption is over, at least for now. Many are worried about the long term consequences of our culture and social acceptance of corruption.

The problem of extremist movement arises from the systemic blockage of civic protests, as happened to many previous socio-political movements and as happening to Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. We are yet to show any sign of maturity as a democracy and learn from our past mistakes. Our system in independent India has been doing it since its birth in 1947, as our “elected” representatives and ruling "elites" inherited the legacy of our past foreign rulers, since 1191- start of Muslim rule. Such "elites" include mainly the blue eyed boys of Muslim invaders (for ~600 years) and then the British (for ~200 years), who facilitated their rule over this country- in form of rajas, jaminders, feudal landlords, businessmen, local goons and bureaucrats (including police, judiciary, civil administration bosses). It is also true that most of those rajas, nawabs, jaminders etc were nothing but local dacoits or leaders of organized crimes (that include businessmen). These goons were remunerated not only by so-called prestigious awards, powerful positions and blood-money, but also awarded coveted admission to prestigious British universities like Cambridge and Oxford. That was like the passport to "culture" and "education", accepted to our ruling elites. Titles like raja, prince, nawab, raybahadur are few such "prestigious" awards to the native, aspiring elites. Responsible positions in bureaucracy, police, judiciary, university education, research institutes etc were severely compromised by such acts of endowment. In subsequent years, oppression was accompanied with the awe and ego of “culture” and “education” of the scions of the looters aka rajas, nawabs, jaminders and bureaucrats.

Once the ambition for power and money is (reasonably) achieved, many now try to get some recognition for "culture" and "education". They developed a nice way to achieve that, apart from buying famous books and other items of art to decorate (hardly used, less understood, least followed) their homes and offices, start regular visit to art exhibitions and getting involved in the education business. One of the most preferred ways is to get the daughter married to a boy already having heavy weight degree(s) or sending the would-be groom to buy some degree(s), preferably from abroad. Such "educated" and "cultured" son-in-laws are excellent showpieces to advertise the glory of the family. No, such people are not much worried about any certificate of honesty, as they know that ignorance of general people allow them to accept heavy-weight degrees and employment hierarchy as the ISO mark for all good virtues like honesty, hard work and talent. With that assurance, they can afford to ignore few skeptics who still dare to question why so many of our "highly educated" politicians and other elites are so corrupt, least talented, but no less gifted with "prestigious" national awards. Paid headline news in national media are not so uncommon these days. On the other hand, our typical "good" students from less fortunate background seldom afford the courage and ability to ignore the easy and fast avenues to climb the hierarchy, provocation of assured career, and most importantly, wealth and power- simply by being associated with such powerful and wealthy families.

Severe shortage of trained manpower and commercialization of education in western democracies made their job easier. Gradually Oxbridge was replaced by american universities, as the glory and power of British empire eroded, new world order established. Sometimes such elites promote backbone-less cronies, as we see in many high positions in India today, only to show that one can prosper only if s/he obeys them - the ruling elites. In short, the culture of "endowment", distribution of national awards to cronies and relatives continued unhindered in independent India.

That culture of a feudal society and all pervasive corruption has another serious implication. It does not allow natural leadership quality to develop. In such a society people with leadership quality have to face severe consequence- mostly ruthlessly crushed, if not supported by some sort of god-father/mother or powerful family. The vacuum in leadership positions are filled by promoted, not natural, leaders. There is no internal democracy in majority, if not all, of the political parties in India. That's why there is hardly any chance for India to get its own Barack Obama in near foreseeable future. That trend is not limited to politics or bureaucracy but present in almost every field including private sector companies.

No, I am not stereotyping. You can say it profiling- used by security agencies, national governments, policy makers and many others. It's the same reason a person can expect little more scrutiny while applying for US visa from its embassy in Delhi or Mumbai as compared to that in Kolkata.

The cycle of deprivation, oppression and exploitation continued almost unhindered since 1947, as the British handed over the right to rule (not "govern") to more dishonest and no less oppressive desi “brown sahibs”, who sometimes behave more British than actual British rulers. On top of that, the good-for-nothing fellows who failed as students were groomed by mainstream political parties as student "leaders". Then modern day criminals, big businessmen joined the loot. Several big business tycoons are members of our parliament, many in Rajya Sabha (the upper house) where members are nominated by political parties without public referendum. There are an estimated 300 MPs with assets worth Rs one crore or more in the new Lok Sabha, with 543 members having combined asset of Rs 3,075 crore. Now the number of crorepatis is almost double, from 154 in the 14th Lok Sabha. Four MPs in Lok Sabha have assets worth more than Rs 100 crore. If anyone still thinks that these rich and powerful people are there to serve the country and its people then read this article published in Economic Times which describes how "MPs have managed to find a place in many House panels despite having business interests in the sectors concerned". Please keep it in mind that the above information is only the declared asset value where the most powerful Indian politician, Sonia Gandhi, has only Rs1.38 crore total asset including a house in Italy that is valued around Rs 18 lakhs (~ $ 36,000) and no car, as per election affidavit!

The trend accelerated fast after Indira Gandhi institutionalized corruption. National institutions were ruined, started resembling party offices and increasingly being dominated by cronies. In the meantime, we committed another grave mistake. We kept the old bureaucracy, police, judiciary that the British introduced in their native colony, which was significantly different than what they had in Britain. Our policy makers never seriously tried to reform the core institutions, even though talks of reforms are going round since ages.

Last few weeks I was watching debates on Lokpal in Indian TV channels. Most of the politicians, mainly from the ruling party, talked as if they are the kings. We all seem to have the constitutional obligation to obey them and, most importantly, those who support Anna Hazare and Anna himself is nothing but insignificant bugs which would have been "crushed if our great forefathers, great administrators, were present".

Many believe that it is now pay-back time. Fast spread of naxals, increasing tendency of general citizens to take laws into their hands, more support towards hartals, bandhs and gheraos by common Indians now (as compared to 1971) are just few symptoms of the all pervasive rot. Check this BBC article that says- "today 223 districts - India has 636 districts - in 20 states are "Maoist affected", up from 55 districts in nine states six years ago. Ninety of the affected districts, according to the government, are experiencing "consistent violence". PM Manmohan Singh calls it the country's "greatest internal security challenge". Such facts show that increasing distrust over our political system and civil governance, more so after 1991 economic liberalization. That is supported by many reports, fact and figures. One such reports tells- Indian government gave three times more subsidy to rich Indians (Rs 4.6 lakh corers) as compared to middle class and poor people (Rs 1.54 lakh corers). It is high time for us to ponder why India is among the worst of the "emerging economies" in terms of poverty, income inequality and social discrimination since globalization (i.e. since 1991- in case of India). Emerging economies like Indonesia, Argentina effectively reduced social and income inequalities significantly in recent times while India is among the worst affected ones (along with South Africa).

Anna's movement is (probably, was) a rare opportunity to bring a systemic change in our system of governance and force our "elected" representatives and public servants to govern- not rule. Only those get democracy who deserve it and ready to fight for it. By now we know that chanting the mantra of peace does not guarantee peace. The same way, chanting the mantra of “parliamentary democracy" and shouting from the roof that “parliament is supreme” does not transform a corrupt, feudal society into a productive, prosperous democracy. One must be able and ready to pay the price as and when needed. At the end of the day, we get what we actually deserve. It does not matter if we like it or not!

Remember the woodpecker whom we asked not to "drum" or "peck" when we started this article? Wood boring insects, grubs, ants are not the only food woodpecker can eat. In fact adult woodpecker change their diets according to what food sources are most abundant. In the fall, nuts, seeds and fruit are popular foods for woodpeckers because of plentiful natural harvests. In the spring and summer, these birds feast primarily on insects that provide high levels of protein for breeding birds and growing hatchlings. If we ban our woodpecker to "drum" or "peck" dead woods it will not only create rippling affects in the relevant ecosystem but also will have huge negative impact on future generations of woodpeckers, without not so immediate and acute impact on the adults.

**added later: The bill was not passed in Rajya Sabha. The house was adjourned without voting amid chaos after a debate stretched to midnight.

How can we, in personal capacity, help reforming basic education in India?

2011-11-12T11:50:00.007-05:00

Some time ago I suggested to giving importance to basic education, at primary and high school level to have better quality of scientists and other professionals. I also think, there is absolutely no point to waste public money in setting up (mostly) useless new, “elite” institutes at this time. It will surely provide employment for some but will not bring much positive change in the quality or productivity of Indian higher education and research. Quantity does not guarantee quality unless there is the desire and transparency in the motivation.

Initially I used to be optimistic about Non Governmental Organization, NGO (non-profit organization- as popularly known in the USA) operated or promoted schools. Later I realized that majority of such NGOs are equally corrupt and counter productive for our national interest, operated within and/or outside the country. India has the largest number of NGOs in the world (3.3 million registered ones, as in 2009, with many more unregistered) with more than 20 million employees, mostly unpaid or under-paid volunteers- nicely exploited for their temporary infatuation (for majority), some fashion and few passion (besides the usual compulsion to have a job and/or experience, applicable to any other sector). It is alleged that more than 90% of Indian NGOs are corrupt. Many big business houses, politician or political party affiliated organizations, individual entrepreneurs and even organized crime syndicates start NGOs for various reasons- starting from acting as "pressure groups" (lobby) to promote a product or technology or public policy that benefit it, to money laundering and human trafficking. Indian government is the biggest donor (Rs 18,000 crore in the XI plan), followed by foreign contributors (worth around Rs 10,000 crore in 2007-08). Around Rs 2,000 crore was donated to established religious bodies such as the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. Lately individual donors are emerging as the biggest and most lucrative source of funds (1). In short, motivation for majority of Indian NGOs boils down to profiteering and tax incentives, not only from that specific venture but also for other organizations owned by the same company or individual than dedication towards any social or national cause. Due to that overwhelming majority, few dedicated NGOs also lose credibility and that affect its financial prospect. Almost none of those NGO operated/promoted schools have any idea about education, leave alone its desire or ability. It is just another business as usual. Many political and business heavyweights in India now have schools, colleges and even universities that are pathetic in quality and motivation, nonetheless doing roaring business. It is because majority parents have no idea about education either and few, who have, do not have any desire, rather able to gather the courage, to groom their children as “educated”.

The few honest efforts to run schools suffer not only from resource crunch but also are confused if they should continue that effort. The students from such schools do not do very well in competitive exams and job market (as compared to rot memorization and coaching based kids and/or kids from affluent parents). Gradually such schools lose its sheen among parents (particularly among those parents who can pay) and become establishments for less-privileged kids (who have no better option), mostly run by few benevolent, reasonably honest donors and government handouts (that again ruin its independence, get involved in political interference that ultimately destroy its purpose). Most of the time the institution dies with the death of the person, who established the school (then the local mafia or political leader becomes its president or sectary and party cadres become the teachers).

One patron of such a school once jokingly told me that, "I need to open my own industry to recruit the students from my school". His next statement was more serious, "not many organizations, public or private, prefer to recruit our students. Even the most brilliant and dedicated ones are forced to go away (from our island) and do petty clerical job, that too if s/he is fortunate. Because we do not teach them how to score 100% marks, can not teach them to become “street smart”, speak fluent English to get the BPO jobs". Whatever the person might say, one can easily understand the impact of his school among local people in the village, among the community. The community is economically poor but very clean (both personal hygiene and community-wise), disciplined, honest and, most surprisingly, none of them (I talked to) ever realized even the need to have a police station! They still have excellent sense of collective responsibility towards the community, wealth distribution is more or less equal, no caste or religious division (so far I can witness), no crime whatsoever. They follow laws and ethics without any fear or force from any police (there was no police station in the whole island). Some might be illiterate, yet, collectively they are more educated and developed in every sense. Many will be surprised to know where I found that excellent community and the school! It was in one of the remote islands in Andaman, Rangat island, about 200 km away from the hustle and bustle of Port Blair. The community was established around mid 1950s, (mostly) by refugee Bengali community settled in Andaman after partition of India.

No, those local students never top UPSC exam or secured the top positions in any "prestigious" joint entrance exam, probably never joined IISc or IIT or IIM type “elite” institute or get any foreign scholarship/fellowship. They are not expected to get any either, in the foreseeable future. US, Europe are as alien to them as moon to many of us. There I observed one of the best model of education and students I ever experienced anywhere in India. Probably we will lose that soon, as heavy flow of "civilized" and "educated" tourists, businessmen and bureaucrats (who never learned the basic to respect other human beings particularly if they have darker skin or not to treat fellow human beings as animals in a sanctuary) from outside- polluting that remote, (so far) peaceful and civilized part of India (2). Local people are worried too, but feel helpless, just like many of us in mainland India. I met one ex-army officer, an excellent gentleman, who settled there to enjoy both natural and human ("Insaaniyat"- as he described me) beauty. He was a very worried man too, but determined to continue to fight the loosing battle.

I realized that education and quality of school reflect mentality of general, local people and/or community. Just yesterday I met an young Indian couple in front of an Indian grocery store in a US city. They parked their car in a parking lot reserved for handicapped people. There was enough empty parking space but that handicapped one was the nearest to the shop they went. The car had a big "Ohio State University Alumni" sticker to advertise its owner's "education", but did not have the permit to use handicapped parking (which is legally binding, all-time-display to use that facility). When I suggested the couple not to misuse the facility, they started telling me how that is none of my business and suggested me to do whatever I feel like (in the typical irritating tone, prevalent in some parts of northern India)! Their "education" taught them that maintaining law and order is the responsibility of only police and government - common people "have no business" there. I was looking for an apology and simple assurance that they would not be doing it again. Instead their arrogance and defense to support their illegal activity prompted me reporting it to the police. The car had a booster seat at the back. I assume they have kid(s). What type of education they like to give to their child? Such people practically destroyed India and will contribute doing the same wherever they go- Andaman or USA, knowingly or unknowingly.

If we ourselves are not honest, do not value ethics and morality, no law can force us to change that. No formal education or school can teach that. So long parents want to groom only “toppers” and desire to have some heavy-weight degrees for their kids that (they think) will allow them to earn more money and power, we will only have that “education” (rather lack of it). We can reform education in India (or probably anywhere in the world) if you and me, as parents, give lessons of morality and ethics, teach our kids to respect and uphold honesty and justice by being their role model. Then only we will start producing world class scientists (and any other professionals) in that country. It is an individual effort first. If we succeed at home, then it makes sense to talk about systemic change in the society and government.

Probably my long post will make no sense to many "educated" people and I apologize to them.

I started this post as a response to an excellent thread in Nature India forum.

Early evolution of religion ushered the dawn of scientific research

2011-10-12T09:11:00.033-04:00

Gupi (name changed) was born in a typical conservative Hindu family in India. He visited us for few weeks. It seemed that Gupi presented some tough challenges for his traditional Hindu parents. I think the same challenges are there for many parents and their beloved children who are now preparing to face the world with increasingly higher connectivity, both in terms of personal interactions and digital (in cyber space), in India and abroad. The chance to encounter people with different or even totally opposite tradition and religious beliefs is becoming higher in this era of higher mobility, rapidly expanding communication technology and shrinking personal space. Problems for Gupi and his parents mainly started with religion. The issues became more acute as both Gupi and his parents wanted him to be either a scientist or an engineer.

Many eminent personalities believe that the chance of success of our future generation will largely depend on their understanding of different cultures, which mainly comes from upbringing in multicultural societies as in this country, America. But to get the benefits from the diversity of a multicultural society people need to understand some very basics of human evolution; not only to succeed but sometimes even to survive. It becomes more important in foreign countries where one’s religion and/or traditions are among the minorities. Gupi is one of such kids, growing up abroad where his religion is among the minorities.

Religion has a huge impact on our tradition and culture, the way we like to live. It is also a very sensitive issue. I urge my readers not to take this article personally, but objectively. The purpose of this article is not to hurt anyone’s faith, not to conclude on the issue but to provoke higher level of debate and consolidation of logical thinking. It is believed that both religious and political allegiances are mostly hereditary than rational. These two are also the most important sources for conflict (and both social and political corruption) since ages and remain so till today. In this article I’ll try to deal with the religious issues and leave the political part to our Anna Hazare and his team. In fact, I was encouraged to write this peace after my brief encounter with that 11 year old boy, Gupi’s dilemma and Anna Hazare’s fast to fight corruption.

Let’s start with the very early period of human civilization. During that time humans felt very insecure and helpless in front of natural calamities and search for food. They gradually tried to adjust, understand and overcome the problems when possible. Their main strategy was to organize people and act as a group. It increased their chance of success. That gave rise to community living and group activities like hunting, cultivation etc. During the process people gradually understood the problems more critically and also became aware of their limitations. That awareness provoked some to conceive the existence of supernatural powers, which they thought were behind all those forces that they cannot control. They also started believing that such supernatural forces strike when they are not happy, just like they do. They tried to keep the spirits happy, developed a set of rituals, later known as “worship”. Each group of people tried to conceive the supernatural powers according to their own experiences. If they liked any particular food or drink, they used to offer those to their Gods. Gods also started looking like them, physically. The same God is not exactly the same in southern India as compared to that of northern India. Our current, but totally misleading, perception about Jesus Christ with blue eyes and blond hair is just another fascinating story in that regard.

Even the definition of God varies from region to region. Ravana may be a demon in most of India but many people in Sri Lanka and southern India consider him as God. Many believe that Ravana was a better king or administrator, if one compares prosperity of his kingdom with that of Ram. Ajodhya was not “golden” but Lanka was! Of course the package (for Ravana) came with the characteristics that were so common among king-class, elite people (even today), which ultimately caused his defeat and death, just like majority other kings in history.

Now coming back from Satya yuga to our Kali yuga, which started on 18th February 3102 BC as per Brahma Vaivarta Purana and Wikipedia. As most of the natural calamities used to be the same i.e. rain, flood, storm-wind, draught-sun, wild beasts etc, many of such supernatural powers had high similarities (though not identical) world over. Gradually all such concepts and activities gave rise to religion. To cut the long story short, religion was developed to make societies more organized and to involve majority population to participate in different activities or rituals for betterment of the society. Religion made implementing the rules much easier. Both remuneration and punishment was introduced. It gave rise to the concept of virtue and vice. Breaking the rules was equated to sin or vice while obeying those became virtues. Here we should keep in mind that all such rules were made by human, most probably the pack leaders of the groups. During early phase of human evolution and initial days of religion, almost everyone was busy to ensure their survival and growth. They all were interested to search reasons (to solve problems), in other words, the truth (mainly behind natural calamities, food supply and reproduction). Later life became a bit easier due to many innovations and inventions. Then the main evolution of religion started, as we see it today.

Ancient religions are more inclined to have idol worshipping. They have many Gods to take care of natural causes like wind, rain, flood, life threatening animals, birth, death etc. Examples of such religion are Hinduism, religions in ancient Egypt, Greece etc. Many tribes in India and abroad practice this type of religion with many Gods and idol worshipping. More recent religions like Islam, Christianity are more like ideology. Almost all of such recent religions conceive a single God. The person who introduced that ideology became the prophet, mostly the “last” prophet. Such differences indicate the motive behind introduction of such religions. It's like establishing an ideology than to motivate survival of a group of people. The same analogy can be drawn to other non-religious socio-political evolutions, e.g Marxism. It’s the same psychology with which a king rules his subjects and advertises his supremacy. Evolution of recent religions was possible as life became easier. Creation and spread of such recent religions also affected more ancient religions. Leaders of those ancient religions tried to invent new rituals to strengthen their grips over power, and wealth associated with power. “Satidaha” (burning of brides), caste division, no beef eating, many marriages by men but not by women etc by Hindus are some of this type of new rituals. As people from different religions came closer, competition to prove ones’ supremacy became more intense.

Historians and anthropologists widely accept that beef was widely eaten in ancient India. The people, whom we consider as the creator of Hinduism, not only used to eat beef but also prescribed beef for many health reasons and illnesses. An ancient Hindu text, Manusmriti (200BC to 200AD), lists cow as one of several animals whose meat can be eaten. One of the two great Indian epics - the Mahabharata - speaks of beef being a delicacy served to esteemed guests. For a quick reference one can read an article published in BBC on 9th August 2001. It was published after few fundamentalists, claiming to be Hindu, started law and order problems and threatening author, Prof D N Jha, for his book “Holy Cow: Beef in Indian Dietary Traditions”.

Even the languages, which were only the means of expression, became associated with specific religions. Arabic became Islamic, Latin became Christian, and Sanskrit became a Hindu language. Many Hindus started believing that anything written in Sanskrit must be true and (mostly) holy. Here we should keep in mind that Sanskrit was not the language of common people but of socio-political elites of ancient India.

To maintain the social order and supremacy, group-leaders did not encourage asking question. They started implementing their own version of “truth” in the name of religion. It became the norm. Gradually every religion started demanding un-questionable faith. “Search for truth” soon became the fight to establish one’s own version of truth. Now we see the fight among human beings to prove that their version of “truth” is more “true” than that of others! This deformed version of “religion” allegedly is the single most important reason for human sufferings, conflicts and death in the past and remains so even today. Religion took a massive blow to serve its original intended purpose as we invented constitution, laws and lately democracy to maintain social discipline. This presented a great dilemma for many, particularly for those who live in secular democracies like India and the USA.

Many cannot stop the temptation to cite famous people, mainly famous scientists like Einstein to “prove” religion. Let me quote a letter written by no other but older, more matured Albert Einstein on January 3rd 1954, a year before his death. It says (as published in many newspapers, including “The Telegraph” of UK on 13th May 2008)- “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this”. Einstein, who died the following year aged 76, did not spare Judaism from his criticism, believing Jewish people were in no way “chosen” by God. He wrote: “For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”

Our own Achariya Prafulla Chandra Roy, the noted chemist and among the first few Indian entrepreneurs to set up knowledge based Industry, Bengal Chemical, in India on 12th April, 1901, once tried to identify “since when and why India cannot undertake objective scientific research” (my own translation from Bengali texts). After a long investigation he wrote a book, “History of Hindu Chemistry”. There he identified distorted interpretation and practice of religion (more specifically the Hindu religion) and heinous caste system as the root cause. In an article titled, “knowledge of technical arts and decline of scientific spirit”, he was more elaborate. He specifically identified two people – first one is Saint Shankaracharaya and then saint Manu (who introduced stricter caste based social division and marriage among Hindus). For a quick reference one can check the short article published in reputed Bengali magazine, “Desh” (2nd February 2011 issue). The sad state of affairs of Hindus (and Bengalis) becomes clear when we find madness to celebrate 150 years of Rabindranath Tagore but not even a fraction to remember this great Indian scientist and entrepreneur (1861-1944).

There are many people who consider themselves Hindu yet totally deny existence of God. One such group of Hindu sites the ancient Sanskrit scripture, Sankhya- tattva-kaumudi. It argues that a perfect God can have no need to create a world, and if God's motive is kindness, Samkhya questions whether it is reasonable to call into existence beings who while non-existent had no suffering. Samkhya postulates that a benevolent deity ought to create only happy creatures, not an imperfect world like the real world!

Now let’s come out of such controversies and share the good news. A recent survey by PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life, a part of the famous American think-tank Pew Research Center, concluded that atheists and agnostics are among the highest-scoring groups in a survey of religious knowledge, outperforming “believers”. If we re-frame that statement, we can safely say that those people who know more about religion believe less in it. Another PEW survey concluded that, “America is among the most religious of the world’s developed nations. Nearly six-in-ten US adults say that religion is “very important” in their lives”. The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) of USA concluded in 2002 that, “the influence of religion is decreasing in all the developed countries surveyed so far. In USA, about 51.6% of people think that it is decreasing and about 37.5% believe that it is increasing”. A recent article in BBC pointed out that, “Religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says”. These nine countries include mostly developed ones- Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

I personally think there is no conflict between science and religion, as many believe or might expect. It will not be right to say that Achariya PC Roy was less Hindu (to do excellent “objective scientific research”). But that will only be true if we keep in mind the real meaning of religion and can logically follow its gradual evolution. The people whom we think are the founding fathers, invented “religion” to seek truth, as I indicated before. I could not include “founding mothers” simply because almost all mainstream religions are male dominated and follow policies mostly biased against women. It is almost unimaginable to see a woman as the Pope (the head of Catholic Church) or a Shankaracharya in Kanchipuram or the Imam of any great mosque. Nevertheless, all those father figures and many great women scholars used to seek truth with the tools and techniques available to them. They very effectively used the best tools they had, i.e. their brain. They developed the ability to ask questions and seek answers, not for monetary gain or fame. Are these not the same very basic requirements to become a true scientist even today? If you do not have those, no degree or job designation can make anyone a scientist. Science is not just learning few techniques, following protocols, rote memorization of some information/data or even publications and getting awards. To me science is nothing but searching the truth and solving problems.

During the course of evolution we lost the focus and forgot the real meaning of religion. We started following some (mostly) meaningless rituals in the name of either religion or tradition. There comes the conflict. Meditation is not just sitting idle in a specific posture for a period of time to watch soap operas or cricket on TV later. It was to prepare our mind to be able to concentrate on more challenging problems. A true religious person will not undertake any sort of corruption or dishonesty using some mundane rituals as shield. The same is true for a scientist. Eating beef does not make anyone less Hindu. Not eating beef also does not make the highly corrupt, dishonest person a Hindu or a religious entity either. To me, spirituality indicates purification of one’s own mind by achieving the ability to think clearly and logically towards making the world a better place. Unless we can do that, there is no way that following some rituals or traditions will make us either spiritual or religious. It is immaterial to me if you gather strength by thinking some real (e.g. our own parents, spouses, children, friends etc) or imaginary (God, Goddess etc) figures or from personal conviction of logic and facts (as atheists do) if you are an honest person with the ability to think clearly and the courage to talk straight. If we follow Vivekananda we should understand that one does not need to pray to God or offer pujas all the time to become religious, if we are honest and have the ability to fight for it.

In this special occasion of Durga Puja and Daushera we celebrate strength and self-cleansing to fight evils. Let’s come together, join hands to do just that. Otherwise we will be celebrating just another party with lots of noise, nice foods, blabbering of “culture” and some lifeless statues in front of us. If we can teach this simple truth to our children like Gupi, they will not have the confusion. They will not suffer from identity crises to become a Hindu and dream to become a scientist or an engineer despite of being a religious person.

** This blog is a modification of one of my earlier blogs (God created man or man created God?). It was published in the local puja magazine on the eve of Durga Puja (2011).

Clinical trials claimed almost 1,600 lives in India in just 3 yrs

2011-09-25T10:21:00.019-04:00

A new report, published in Indian Express on 25th September 2011, is very disturbing. It says, “nearly 1,600 people died during clinical trials of drugs conducted by various multinational pharmaceutical companies in the 2008-10 period but the compensation was paid only in 22 cases, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS)”. The cost of 22 lives of those who volunteered in such clinical trials is just Rs 53.33 lakh ($ 112,000). Most of the volunteers hardly have any idea about the risks. They also do not get many of the safeguards, enforced in any developed country, to protect their health, mainly after trials. According to the RTI reply, the number of registered clinical trials in the country from 2007 to 2010 stood at 1,502.

While outsourcing drug trials may save significant money for the pharmaceutical companies, the cost in human lives and suffering for both the developing trial participants and American drug users is likely horrendous. Many have questioned how appropriate and ethical it is to test drugs intended for the American (and European) markets in developing countries. Duke University`s recent report, Ethical and Scientific Implications of the Globalization of Clinical Research, labeled developing country trials as scientifically questionable and morally inappropriate. The study noted that genetic and other population differences could render results that did not apply to the target population. The report also raised concerns over the role money might play in recruiting poor volunteers. As recently as 1990, only 271 trials of drugs intended for American use were being conducted in foreign countries. By 2008, the number had risen to 6,485. According to a National Institutes of Health database, 58,788 such foreign trials have been conducted in 173 countries outside the United States since 2000. In 2008 alone, 80 percent of the applications submitted to the FDA for new drugs contained data from foreign clinical trials.

India is increasingly being used not only by big pharma and other biotech companies from abroad, but also by many highly dubious Indian companies in areas like clinical trials, testing (and production) of transgenic crop varieties, “research” on harmful chemicals and its production. Another such industry is asbestos, widely used in India. Most of the countries in the world had banned asbestos. India is yet to ban its use, production and import despite many reports to show its damaging impact on environmental and public health. One such report says India is on the cusp of a devastating asbestos cancer epidemic. There are many such industries operating successfully and with impunity in India.

Leave alone the smaller players, who operate under the radar, even the big Indian companies are alleged to having increasing involvement in such practices. In March 2004, the Supreme Court of India hauled up two top biotech companies in India, the Hyderabad-based Shanta Biotech and Bangalore-based Biocon India, for "openly conducting illegal clinical trials of new drugs on unsuspecting patients" (Asia Times Online). One can watch this interesting TV documentary to know more about it, how it works.

Our aspiring future scientists and young talents suffer from such practices in the name of research. Academic research also gets affected by the power of such businesses.

It seems that anything is justified in post-1991 India in the name of investment and/or research. It gives our political masters and industry captains the opportunity to advertise their successes, to both Indian and global audience, with a huge cost to the country and its future scientific potential.

Aranyak

2011-06-23T16:37:00.032-04:00

To tell you the truth, I was not impressed at all when I first read Arnayak long time ago, during my school days. We had a small piece from that classic novel in our Bengali textbook. That time it was so boring, monotonous description of nature of our area, Chotonagpur plateau, in India. That description was so common, ordinary to me. I used to see many of the natural wonders described in the book on a daily basis and reading about the same in a book, and that too in a text book, did not excite me. I started reading the novel due to my father's forceful request but left it halfway. It was lying, neglected, in a cupboard with many other old books. I forgot about it.

After a long time my wife bought the book. I started reading it. Now I realized that probably I did the right thing by not reading that classic literature during my teen, when I was too immature to understand nature, human relationship and relationship of nature with human beings. It provoked so many emotions, so many pictures of my lost childhood and more importantly my lost innocence amidst rough, tough nature of chotonagpur plateau. During my childhood I was almost like of some the kids described in that novel.

The novel was written during 1937-1939 by Bibhutibhusan Bandhyodadhya. It was mainly based on his personal experience during 1924-1930, as an estate manager for a landlord Khilat Chandra Ghosh in wild Azamabad - Fulkia – Lobtulia areas of Bihar state. To understand the novel we probably will need to know little more about the author.

Bibhutibhusan was born in 1894 in a village near Kalyani, about 100km away from Kolkata, in British India at his maternal uncle's house, following the tradition that child birth should happen in mother's paternal home or maternal uncle’s home- to save husband and in-laws from the hassles of child birth, to ensure proper care for the new mom and the child and observing so many rituals and restrictions, mainly for new mother, of course. His father, Mahananda Bandyopadhyay, was a sanskrit scholar and a kathak, one who tells stories for a living. His home was near Gopalnagar police station in Bongaon, North Twenty Four Parganas. He studied in Bongaon High School, one of the oldest institutions in Brithish India. Incidentally, he also taught at this school at the beginning of his working life. His early days were spent in abject poverty, so typical of an honest scholar and priest (still a reality in India). Nevertheless, he fought his way to complete his undergraduate degree in history with distinction, at the Surendranath College, Kolkata. Though he was admitted to the MA and law classes, he could not continue his studies. He was married to Gouri Devi. She died in childbirth after only a year of their marriage. Bibhutibhushan again married Rama Chattopadhyay when he was 46. Their only son, Taradas, was born in 1947. Bibhutibhusan died on 1 November 1950, of a heart attack while staying at Ghatshila, in Jharkhand state of Chotonagpur plateau.

Despite of having a childhood in rural India and traveled extensively in that part of India, I did not have much idea about the lives of the common people described in the novel. I had the curiosity but satisfied with watching it from a distance. I neither could gather the courage nor ability to proceed further. I started wondering when Satyacharan (the person who narrates the story in the novel) questions himself, “what people want- success or happiness? Why should we succeed if that takes away happiness from us? I know so many people who had succeeded but lost all their happiness. Our consciousness looses its sheen with too much indulgence. We lose the ability to wonder, to become happy. Life becomes so boring, colorless and meaningless. Our minds become too polished to express or extract happiness”. I am not sure if my translation conveys the real meaning of the statement made by Bibhutibusan through Satyacharan. No, I did not have the ability to understand the statement the time I first read Aranyak. Now, I think, I can.

Characters like Jugal Prasad, Raju Pande (Panree), Dhautal Sahu, Nandalal Ojha, Rashbihari Singh, Chutu Singh, Motuk Nath Pandit, Asrafi Tindel, Dhaturia are so real, at least to me, that I could not but recollect so many people that I can assign those characters to. Probably we all know such people around us.

The descriptions of women in that wild, less forgiving nature indicated Bibhutibhusan’s sensitivity and understanding of human relationship. I really pity those men, those societies who try to strangle, suffocate women and think they can enjoy the charm, the company and even sexuality of women. How stupid they are! They do not know what they are missing. The ease with which tribal princess Bhanumati; Kunta, the daughter of a "baiji" (notch girl) and widow of a Rajput; Manchi- the simple, lively, inquisitive young adult and wife of an old man, are described shows maturity of Bibhutibhusan in man-woman relationship, especially in our highly conservative society, that too in British India.

Bibhutibhusan's attitude towards caste and religion is so evident in many places of the novel. He has no problem to eat and stay with people not only from different caste but also from different religions. The character of Satyacharan was and still is a model of an ideal administrator. It seems that to become a good administrator we need to screen people with both heart and head, not by some rot memorization and coaching based screening test that we use now to make our civil servants. Probably that's why, despite of having the most competitive screening test, Indian civil service is among the most corrupt and ineffective in Asia (1, 2) and "the most stifling" in the world (3). It seems that a head without a heart can only bring darkness to the world.

Many of us, if not majority, still insult people based on social, professional and economic hierarchy. Many of us feel proud thinking they are the descendants of true Aryans and loudly insult people who does not qualify as Aryans - like the tribal king Dobru Panna Birwardi, Jogru Panna or beautiful Bhanumati. We kill so many Dhaturias by not allowing them to learn and express what they love and excel in. We are so blinded by our own distorted interpretation of “education” and “success” that a retired deputy magistrate and his family members never think before they insult Satyacharan, riding a horse in a forest with not so sophisticated dress. Such people hardly care to express their ignorance and stupidity while insulting local, tribal people and their culture. Does our sense of "green" (a catchy phrase for marketing of almost any product these days) have developed in last one century to think before we pollute forests, sea beaches, historical places and many other places of beauty with garbage from their civilized picnic or noisy partying, as we see in almost each and every place in India these days?

Probably such attitude among older (and a small section of current) generation of Bengalis gave rise to mass annoyance, if not anger, against Bengalis in all those places where Bengalis flocked in mass for routine outings or travel or settled outside Kolkata (which became synonymous to Bengal)- be it within Bengal itself (any person who is not from Kolkata is surely "uncivilized"!) or in North Eastern states, Bihar, UP, MP, Orissa or any other place in India. Many famous Bengali personalities, who used to regularly go to the "west" (west to Bengal- i.e. mainly Bihar, MP, UP and Orissa) for health reason, behaved in the same pathetic way. Majority of them not only exploited and insulted local people and their culture but also practically contributed nothing positive there. Probably it is now payback time for Bengalis in places like North Eastern states, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh etc. Later that urban "civilization" spread all across India. What many Bengalis did a century ago, many other Indians learned and continue to do it today. It gave rise to mass frustration and sometimes anger. That is partly responsible for fast spread of extremist movements like Naxals. Some of such naive Indians taste the same medicine when they travel or live abroad. Then they start understanding and then shouting about racial discrimination. They never understood, leave alone analyze, their own behaviors in their own country, against their own people. It is not at all surprising, to me at least, that India is still a highly feudal, hierarchical society.

I am really surprised with the foresightedness of Bibhutibhusan when he questions our model of “development”, when we destroy our century old natural and human wealth for “success” of few people and logic for establishment and spread of slum culture. He did that at the first half of 20th century, when India was much better (relatively speaking) in terms of natural and human beauty. He seemed to be knowing the consequences of spread of third-world style of "development" of towns and metros like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi that invariably increase poverty. Have you ever seen filthy open drains, stinking people or crying, malnourished babies running all over in a (economically) poor, remote village anywhere in India, untouched by industrial exploitation? Probably no. Just with till a factory comes up and see the immediate change!

Have you observed Mumbai, the most prosperous and the financial capital of "shining" India, from the sky? It looks more like a slum city with tarpaulin and blue plastic roof, slums all over with few scattered high rises. Can you imagine a $2 billion house, the costliest in the world, in the midst of sprawling slum anywhere, in any developed country? Probably it is possible only in a third world country like India. Mumbai has more than 60% of its population live in slums (4). Slums have increased dramatically since 1950s, despite of so many developmental programs. A person with 2 million rupees ($ 44,000) annual income, which constitute probably less than 1% of its population, does not dare to buy a decent apartment (leave alone having own house) in a decent locality and settle there in that financial capital. Honest economic activities in those cities are not sufficient to support a family there with decent living. Money from all over India is being accumulated in few metro cities. Yet many seemingly "highly educated" people consider that as development! It is even more surprising that not many people and our policy makers understand what we are losing while trying to impose “development”, that not so educated Bibhutibhusan understood with his BA in history degree, about a hundred years ago!

Our fight against corruption and Anna Hazare

2011-06-17T12:10:00.073-04:00

Probably we all are now aware of the recent uproar against corruption in India. People are angry. If anyone providing them an outlet to vent their frustration they readily grab it and participate in such “mass movements”. Our news hungry 24x7 media is more than happy to oblige anyone with an agenda. Everyone seems to be in favour of such movements. Naturally there is a huge market for it. Even corporate houses sponsoring some of the events. It is really surprising that if everyone is so against corruption, why we have such an extensive and intense corruption in almost every field of life there! The answer may lie in another observation. An office clerk joins Anna Hazare in the evening after taking bribe to protest against A Raja's 2G scam, a student after cheating in exam, a teacher after completing his private tuition evading his school teaching duties, a doctor after prescribing some useless tests to unsuspecting patients and so on.

In reality, Indian society never learned what is democracy, what justice means since long; long before we got independence, long before British occupied the land. It is so contrasting if we think that a king, Gopala, in the Indian state of Bengal was among the first few democratically elected kings in the world (around 750 AD). One wonders how such a society reached its current state! That is not limited to political governance but present in every field of life. We need to analyse the problems more critically to find out suitable solutions.

It will be pertinent to understand how Indian society evolved. It is a largely accepted fact that general people from southern India are less corrupt. It coincides with the fact that north India had to face repeated foreign invasions, mainly from Muslim invaders who had very different social, religious, ethical and legal concepts as compared to the locals. South did not face that so often and so intensely. Those foreign invaders, first by the Middle Eastern or Central Asian Muslims and then Europeans (mainly the British) imposed a drastic change on our ways of lives. Many people, mainly men, used so many excuses to hide our own inability to protect our culture, our women, our ways of lives. Many such excuses took shape in form of religious dictates, distorted version of "tradition" and more awfully in the name of love for peace. Spread of “pardha” among women (which was present only among very few warrior communities like Rajputs, before Muslim invasion), imposing all sorts of rules (in the name of religion and tradition) to deter people asking questions, to curb personal freedom and our senses of justice; in short- to destroy of our own value and education system. Remember Nalanda university, one of the first and great organised universities in the world? It was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khalji around 1200 AD, signifying the start of decline of Indian education and society.

It also changed our perception about corruption. We all witnessed that ruling class do not obey laws that are imposed on others. Different set of rules are applicable to different people, depending on caste, religion, closeness to ruling class and so on. Since then breaking laws was (and still is) equated to power and a sure sign of the socio-political elites. When a common Indian breaks a law or manage any special privilege, s/he feels proud and get satisfaction (may be temporary) to be equated as an “elite”. General Indians forgot that laws are for them, to keep them safe and disciplined. Agreeability and sycophancy, instead of critical thinking and logic, became the rule to climb both social and professional hierarchy. That practice gradually eroded the social shame factor, the best and most effective deterrent against corruption in any country, in any society. We started accepting corruption in the name of reality. Gradually we lost the sense of justice and honesty. University professors, scientists, doctors, bureaucrats, teachers, police from India, in India or abroad (with or without foreign degrees) are as corrupt and dishonest as any illiterate person. It affected our ability to make or reform laws in post-1947 India. Still more than half of our current Indian laws (both civil and criminal) were introduced by our colonial British rulers to rule, not to "govern", their “native” subjects. Most of these laws are highly ineffective today. Some are even anti-national. Recent prosecution of noted social activist and reformer Dr Binayak Sen under British introduced sedation law is one such example.

Not many policy decisions in India are well planned. Not even the much hyped economic liberalization in 1991. That was a mere compulsion after mortgaging 67 tons of gold in the Bank of England due to years of misrule and closed economy. We were desperate to save our economy from total melt down. We could not reform our civil governance and judiciary to match the requirement of a free market, liberalized economy. We naively wished that everything will fall in place due to so-called open market economy and privatization. We conveniently forgot that true “open market” (even in US) is as utopian as communism. Greed of a very small section of our population increased exponentially but we could not protect majority others, the common man (“amm admi” as per popular politicking) from the greed that allowed massive, extra-constitutional manipulation of the system. Those social “elites” include not only businessmen and industrialists but also politicians, bureaucrats, corporate managers, scientists, professors, doctors and other professionals. It simply added to the already high level of corruption (due to socialistic quota-license raj regime of pre-1991 era).

We practically ruined almost all (if not all) of our democratic institutions. Universities and institutes start resembling party offices. Internal control mechanisms were effectively destroyed. That’s why none of the recent high profile scams were detected and/or prevented by the internal control mechanism of respective departments or ministries. All the scams came to light due to outside private (by people like Subramanium Swamy) or 24x7 media or Supreme Court interventions. Not a single high profile current office bearers could gather the courage or honesty or both to support the services by people like Binayak Sen or the ongoing anti-corruption movement initiated by Anna Hazare, a class 7 educated gentleman (in real sense of the word). It says a volume about our current society. Our political masters initially gave in to the demands of Anna Hazare in the wake of many state assembly elections. Once the elections were over and government started negotiating with team Anna, the real intension of our “elected representatives” started becoming clearer. They were more interested to discredit team Anna or “civil society” or anyone who raises voice against all pervasive corruption, than any meaningful discussion to draft an effective Jan Lokpal bill. Does it take much intelligence to imagine the level of cooperation and desire of our elected representatives to pass an effective Lokpal bill in a parliament where about one forth of the members (154 to be precise) and 10 cabinet ministers are having criminal cases pending against them (civil litigation that include financial crimes are not included)? It partly explains why the government drafted, much less stringent Lokpal bill failed to pass in Indian parliament in last 42 odd years.

In India, collective decision making hardly exists. That trend is also evident among many Indian professionals, managing a group of people under them, in India and abroad. Most of the meetings or negotiations are used mainly to inform (rather than discussing) others what few people, so-called higher authority (or "high command") already decided. Feudal nature of decision making, lack of taking responsibility is rampant in every section of our society, starting from the highest level of government to private companies to the lowest level of family issues. Remuneration and/or promotion is not always based on performance but one's ability to please higher authority. Many times the credit for a good job and blame/responsibility for a sloppy work goes, rather imposed, on other people (not the person who actually deserve it). We generally try to gloss over any past mistakes, avoid fixing responsibilities and forget to learn from that. We prefer to "move on" and end up doing the same mistakes, again and again. We build new universities, institutions to improve quality (of research and higher education) or crate new ministries to improve governance without analyzing and learning why our old institutions or ministries failed. That ultimately give rise to the "chalta hai" mentality, tendency of shifting responsibilities, as we often witness among Indian professionals (both in government and private enterprises), in India and abroad. We probably can not afford to care how to build a motivated group.

That attitude helps spreading the culture of mediocrity, erode our productivity and quality of work in the long run, in every field of life, starting from research to business to civil governance. "Success" in such situations depends more on one's ability to use the existing corrupt practices and loopholes (of our system) than on taking responsibility, improve productivity, adhere to professional ethics and, more importantly, desire to change the system that can enable us to do better, enable us to dream to become the best.

That systemic failure makes many able people frustrated who ultimately become aloof. Provokes many to seek justice or other avenues to address personal grievances. This is one of the major factors for not only fast spread of extremist movements like naxals but also for huge brain-drain and very low quality reverse brain-drain or "brain-gain" as some call it (going back to India). Many of our better quality manpower, established abroad, prefer not coming back and settling in India. Some do prefer contributing from abroad. That allows them to speak the truth while insulating themselves and their families from retaliation, as we often see against people like Satyendra Dubey.

Our political parties are no exception. Not a single political party has internal democracy to attract, groom and promote people with true leadership quality. All are run like dynasties, feudal kingdoms (barring the communists, so far). That’s one of the reasons for increasing tendencies of common people to take laws into their own hands. If an able person is discriminated against and can pinpoint the responsible person or authority, it is almost impossible to gag or stop him to seek "justice". Such people eventually find their ways. That may or may not be so constitutional, neither do they care.

Many feel that India probably need or will soon have an Egypt-Tunisia type revolution. They probably do not understand that Indian corruption has a democratic twist, unlike Arab countries. It is true that there is a strong selection pressure to promote people without any sense of justice, honesty and courage (to speak out and remain honest). But if you have the required qualifications, you can join the select club to enjoy the fruits of corruption and lawlessness. That extra-constitutional rights are not limited to friends and relatives of the king or social “elites”, unlike Arab countries. That safety-valve eases a lot of pressure from the cooker and prevents it from bursting early. That’s why rise of common-man politicians like Laloo, Mulayam, Mayawati did not have much positive impact on Indian society, despite of a huge initial promise, so far social equality, corruption in public lives and transparency in governance is concerned.

We also need to understand that staging a revolution is not the same or end of reforming a society. In fact, that is just the beginning of a multi-act drama. Later stages are more difficult and need much longer term, more intense preparation. We need to figure out whom do we think would fill the gap, in case of a successful revolution, as many hopes for. We do not have enough, qualified and, most importantly, honest people to replace the existing lot. That vacuum is not limited to politics but present in every field, every occupation in India. Our "test score" culture kills both natural leadership quality and scientific/technical ability. Over-emphasis on database type information, occasional fascination with knowledge do not allow us to become “wise”. We pathetically lack the ability to ask questions, solve problems and generate novel ideas- be it technical or scientific or social issues like corruption. In short, all of our professionals (be it politicians, police, scientists, professors, lawyers, doctors, engineers and so on) are coming from the same society, from the same pool of people with almost same education and grooming. We must not expect to make any sustainable change with such bunch of (mostly) mediocre and corrupt people. Our task becomes harder considering the fact that not a single country in the whole world with considerable period of foreign rule ever became a developed country, so far.

What is the way forward? Or should we keep on marching the same path and expect a divine miracle to become a “superpower”, “developed” country in future, as many Indians dream against all realistic logic?

I think the solution lies within. We cannot expect everyone to become honest but ourselves. Majority of us support corruption (in the name of "reality") when it benefits us. We start shouting only when we are at the receiving end. We fool ourselves. We must understand that we can not eat the cake and have it at the same time. Our homes are the best place to start that crusade, if I may say so. We need to teach our kids to have some sense of justice and honesty. We must allow or force them to face consequences of their actions, from very childhood. At the same time, we must not force them to accept corruption in the name of "reality" or "practical sense". That is more important than some rote memorization and test-score based “education”.

I do acknowledge that its not only very hard but also dangerous to oppose corruption in Indian situation. Many of the time the official complain goes to the same person against whom you are complaining! This is systemic. That's why the rate of prosecution by India's "premier investigation agency", CBI, is so poor (particularly against influential politicians and bureaucrats); that's why so many politicians are opposed to include Prime Minister under Jan Lokpal bill (as proposed by team Anna). We need to be little careful here while speaking out against corruption. Sometimes we may have to become “anonymous” to voice our concerns in more formal settings, in offices, in societies and so on. That is doable in this age of internet and 24x7 media activity.

Lastly, we must bring back the social shame factor, the best and most effective deterrent against corruption. It is our responsibility to make those openly or known corrupt people feel ashamed and socially outcast. If we have the desire, we surely can avoid making any matrimonial relationship with a known, unacceptably high (relatively speaking) corrupt person or children of such people. Generally a tamarind tree does not produce mangoes.

Again, we need to remember that social shame is the best deterrent to minimize corruption in any society and very effectively used in western societies. Can we do that to start our dream of a better India, while joining rallies and praising people like Anna Hazare in public forums?

"but, what can I do?"

2011-01-28T20:22:00.032-05:00

"But, what can I do?" I hear that exclamation (or should I say "helplessness") quite often whenever people discuss democracy, civil liberty, corruption type issues in the context of India. I also used to belong to that category just few years ago and used to wonder "but, what can I do"! We used to feel so helpless. Immenseness of the problem make it more confusing. Where to start? It is truly overwhelming.

Now I am changing the gear a bit. Today I attended a very informative "public hearing" organized by "We the people" forum of the "Ohio Center for Law Related Education" (OCLRE). It was a state level competition among high school students to make them aware of their "right and responsibilities" under American constitution. Those students need to understand different laws and more importantly its interpretation. They get few months time to prepare for that, with the help of school teacher(s). Then they appear before a panel of jury, generally formed by different people from different walks of life- teachers, administrators, lawyers, judges and law makers (senators and congressmen; i.e MP, MLA equivalent in India). It is about 20 mins hearing time for each school. The students get 10 mins time for inaugural speech. Then the juries ask questions to determine how well they have understood the issue and and not jut parroting some data or prepared statement. Most of the time there is no "right" or "wrong" answer. Whatever the students say need to be clarified with logic and examples. One example- "do you support civil disobedience in a democracy and why". Students also get chance to freely interact with elected public representatives, lawyers, judges and so on. I like the idea. I wish we had something like that in our schools to know more about our country and, most importantly, its constitutional foundation.

Now changing the gear again. I have a friend who recently went through a messy divorce. He got married to a lady from a rich family. The marriage did not click. They were not compatible to each other. It is not the fault of the man or the woman but their upbringing, core values as a human being were totally different. They spent seven days together after marriage. My friend went back to US to join his job while his wife remained in India. Despite of my friend's best efforts his newly married wife did not come to US. Finally he went back to India to attend his father for his deteriorating health. During his stay there my friend and his sister were arrested by police on charges of "demanding dowry, physical abuse and mental torture". It was very sudden development for him. Police arrested them during 10.30 at night. We need to keep in mind that his wife did not stay with her in-laws but lived with her own family for the whole time my friend was in US. My friend was a well-aware (at least he used to think so), "educated" person. He described his first feelings during arrrest was "helpless, scared to the death" in the police station. His passport was confiscated. The next day of his arrest, his father died but he could not go to see his dead father for the last time. They had no idea, whatsoever, about how the police work, how to handle them, what are his/his sister's legal rights, so on and so forth. They learned many things later; e.g legally police cannot arrest any women after 6.30 pm, both the police officer and the person need to sign (or thumb impression) the arrest warrant when police is arresting a person and many such laws, norms, legal ways to fight back against police atrocities and general corruption.

During the whole divorce battle, they learned how our laws are twisted, sold and misused by almost everyone, starting from police, lawyers, judges, media and so on. Everyone was asking for bribe from them. Even court judges were no exception. The dowry related law is very clear to mention that both parties, who give and who receive dowry should be prosecuted. But there is not a single instance that any parent who claim to have given dowry had ever been prosecuted in Indian legal history. If the marriage is successful the money or items given to the groom becomes "gift" while the same becomes "dowry" if the marriage goes bad! My friend learned that despite of giving ample evidences that police were not following laws and harassing them was not sufficient for our judiciary to protect the victims. they learned that police can arrest anyone without showing arrest warrant, police can drag any woman to the police station at night 10.30 pm (the whole drama in police station went on till 2.30 am), police can file a FIR against my friend and his family claiming him (and his family members) to beat the bride when the lady was not even in their house and my friend was in US. In short, my friend came to realize, for the first time in his life, that it is totally different to write laws in a book (called constitution) and practicing that in real life.

The only good thing my friend did was to refuse to bribe anyone. The family members of the bride asked 25 lakhs rupees for an out-of-court settlement. My friend had no clue why he need to pay anyone when he did not take any dowry, never even shouted at his wife. He continued to tell his in-laws to punish him if they can prove a single crime alleged against him. After all, "they should seek justice to protect the dignity and the rights of their own daughter, and that should be more important than 25 lakhs rupees"!

He was also worried that if he can manage that huge sum of money (which he never had) and give that to the lady's family (and police, judges etc.), he practically accepting all their false allegations. That's the main reason he refused to bribe anyone or indulge in any monetary transaction to settle it out-of-court. To cut the long story short, he ultimately won the legal battle after a long fight.

Now my friend knows India better. His sister left her PhD from New York University. Went back to India and started her own fight as a social activist. They became aware how helpless few remaining honest government and other police officials are, who tried their best to get justice for them. They merely could save my friend form more legal and other harassments; but still could not punish any of those corrupt government officials or punish the family members of the lady who brought false allegations against my friend and his family.

I told this story not to highlight the fight of my friend but to show how ineffective our education system is, to groom our future citizens. Mugging up some numeric table or laws of motion is not that important than to know the reality, to know our system, to know what options we might have if we face same situation, if we want to remain honest and deal the system to deliver justice. We accept corruption in the name of reality. We make our ways through it- bribing different people and bullying weaker ones. We naively wonder why so much black money around, why we can never minimize corruption in public lives that is ruing our country from its core. And then wonder, "but what can I do?"

Would it not be a useful idea to take our primary and high school students to local police stations, court houses and let them witness a trial? Or have a guided tour to our state and national parliament houses, meet law makers whose actions practically control our daily lives? Our future citizens need to know how police work, how government officials deal with fellow citizens, or even to those who has committed a crime or alleged to have committed a crime. They need to know how to make laws, what social and ethical issues they need to deal with as a politician or a judge or even a common citizen. I think, they need to know the constrains our police, judiciary and political system. We owe it to them to prepare themselves for the eminent and upcoming future they have to handle and take responsibility of.

I know many parents will be shocked to know that the school is planning to visit the local police station or a court house with their beloved children. We, the adults, try our best to stay clear from such places, for reasons we all know. Probably police personnel will not like that idea either to expose themselves in front of some kids, which may have their own children. But just think a little deeper. It will not only expose our future citizens to know the reality and get enough time to prepare themselves to handle it, whatever it is- good or bad. If some of them are not satisfied, they may try to come up with a solution to change it in future. Police and law makers will (eventually) find it little embarrassing to tell lies to these little kids who may confront them, if caught. Older, more "practical" people might find it hard and/or even risky to ask the same questions they should have asked to our mighty policy makers, police and civil administration.

Here in western societies people say, "if you do not like any politician, then try to become one". In India, we never groom ourselves, our kids to become a true leader, a true politician. Not a single political party in India have any democracy in electing their own leaders, about deciding any policy within the party. That is one of the reasons why we get that type of politicians and policies we have now. There is almost no chance to get our own Barak Obama, from any party in India. We rightly get what we deserve. We wrongly think that by insulating our kids from reality we are protecting them. In reality, we are making them incompetent to have a functional democracy, to take responsibility of their own lives and country and more importantly we force majority of them to stand in the already long que in front of many foreign embassies.

Forcing the kids to go to private tuition or judo or cricket or tennis or computer class probably is important but I will ask teachers and parents to think about what they can really do, in real life, to make a positive and sustainable change in attitude and a personal attempt to make a brighter future for themselves, for their own children and the country.

This is one of the things that you can do, I can do, we all can do as individuals. Worth a try- I think.

The Great Dilemma of the Life Sciences

2010-12-03T21:06:00.021-05:00

It is an excerpt from the chapter, "The Great Dilema of The Life Sciences", in the book, "Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature" by famous biologist, Erwin Chargaff. The book was published in 1978 by Rockefeller University Press, New York. Hope you will enjoy reading it, in the context of today's research scenario. I enjoyed reading it and feel like sharing with others.

One man or two may decide to study a certain beetle. Whether they do this because the animal is pest or biological delight is immaterial. If they find something of scientific interest, there will soon be ten others and more who will do the same. Once there are a hundred men studying the beetle, they will form a society and publish a journal. A society creates a profession, and a profession cannot be permitted to die. It is upto the nation to support it. If the nation can be persuaded, there will soon be a thousand members of the society for the study of the beetle. It is obvious at this stage the beetle can no longer become extinct, for what would all these experts do who may well outnumber the beetle? Then a foundation will arise whose lay members- influential bankers, society ladies- will neither know nor care whether their function is to help with the eradication or preservation of the beetle. They know one thing: they must support those who study the beetle. There may even be a Beetle Ball.

Professional scientists have, by necessity, limited vision. I always tried not to be professional scientist, since I dislike professional professionals. What I used to call "human beings" are becoming rarer as I look around. Not so long ago, St. Augustine would say: "the heart speaks to the heart". But now computer talks to computer. Most people I meet in my or other universities seem to be rejects of IBM. They are really the narrowest, the dullest kinds of experts or specialists; they are essentially molecular podiatrists: people who know all about the fifteenth foot of the centipede.

When you spend your life watching a bubble chamber or running cesium chloride gradient, you may become an expert bubbler or gradient runner, but there is little likelihood of your thus acquiring much wisdom. There is, in fact, a good chance that such people will turn into a very dull fellow indeed, wasting their lives by trying to outrun ten other dull fellows with whom they are in competition.

How is science done in our days? Here I must immediately make a distinction between science as a profession and science as the expression of some of the faculties of the human mind. The two are not necessarily connected. When someone tells me "I am a professional scientist," it does not automatically mean that he is a scientist. The distinction I am suggesting here has nothing to do directly with the question of talent. There have always been more or less gifted scientists, and there were even a few, very few, scientific geniuses. But what I want to bring out is that as a profession science is one of the most recent ones. It barely existed when I began my studies. Perhaps the exception is chemistry, where, when you called yourself a professional chemist, people would assume that you worked in the chemical industry. This was about the only mass outlet for academically trained scientists. It was not an accident that, when the science departments of the universities began to swell and to expand, it was always the chemistry department that led the way; just as the first modern teaching and research laboratory at a university was Liebig's chemistry laboratory in Giessen.

Otherwise, one entered a career in science, just as in history or philosophy, by trying to become a teacher at a college or even a high school. There were very few jobs, and almost none that paid enough to live on, except for the position of the professor himself. And there was usually only one professor for a discipline. Hence the old students' saying that there were only two ways to make a university career: per anum or per vaginam. You tried to become the professor's darling or you married his daughter. Obviously, this limited the choice: some professors were very nasty, some daughters were very ugly. Girl students were altogether out of luck, but there were only a few of them.

You may conclude - and you are right - that this was a most unpleasant system. But it had one advantage: it acted as a sieve, letting through the few who could not do otherwise. By requiring what amounted to a pledge to poverty, it kept out all those who, to use a nasty term, were not "highly motivated." It produced a slightly smaller number, but probably a much higher density, of good scientists than does the present system.

I should by no means wish to give the impression that I am in favor of the old system. It was abominable. Nor am I, on the other hand, in agreement with the way things are done now; for I am convinced that with our methods of organizing and supporting it we are effectively killing science. We are destroying the whole concept of science, as it had developed over the centuries.

This may sound to you awfully apocalyptic, and I ought to clarify it a little. I shall try to do this under four headings: What has science done to the universities? What have the universities done to science? What has science done to the country? What has the country done to science?

All these interactions have to do with science as a profession. But you will remember that I have made a distinction between this aspect and that of science as a product of the human mind. In this respect - namely, as the search for truth about nature - science began as a branch of philosophy, and for me this connection has never broken off. Science is an admirable product of human reasoning, as admirable and astonishing as are music or poetry or the arts. Previous generations understood this very well. For instance, I am a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, until recently, before Columbia sent me down for recycling, I belonged to their Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

As a mental occupation, as a product of the human mind, science does not operate on a time scale. Just as nobody could have told Mozart how many operas he ought to write, there can be no five-year plan for science. It comes as it comes, it goes as it goes. Should all melting points be raised by 10 percent; are six laws of thermodynamics better than three? But when America decided to go into science in a big way - and this really took place only within the last thirty or forty years - it went into it in a crazy fashion. This country has always had the tendency to blow up every balloon until it bursts, and it has done it also with science.

What science has done to the universities is that it has inflated and disfigured them; it has left them more bankrupt than they were before. The large private universities have been turned into huge corporations whose only business is to lose money. There are exceptions, but, in general, power-hungry, empty-headed money grabbers have taken over. The true and only function of a university, namely, to help young people find themselves by bringing to them the accumulated memory of mankind, has been swept aside. By misunderstanding, through overemphasis, of the old adage of the unity of research and learning, research has been made into a teaching tool, into a most expensive and stultifying one, forcing every student to become a researcher and trivializing the purpose of scientific research. Thousands of meaningless and costly experiments are performed to persuade the young that water boils at 100 degrees (Celcius). We are now paying the price for excessive veneration of the value of inductive reasoning.

Now to my second question: What have the universities done to science? They have bled it for overhead; they have cheapened and vulgarized it to the point of nonrecognition; they have made it into a public-relations "gimmick." If the products of this kind of education often still are so good, it testifies only to the resilience of young minds. But many are damaged irreversibly.

What has science done to the country? Obviously, a lot of good and a lot of evil. If the republic envisioned by Plato had come to pass, that is, a dictatorship of wise philosophers, may be no evil would have come to the state from science. But how many wise men will you meet in your future long lives? When I look at our leading statesmen, there are brought back to me the immortal words that the Duke of Wellington once spoke of his generals. "They may not frighten the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me!" The thoughtless, almost automatic use of science as the seed of technology has landed us in a fearful mess. The cry that what we need is more and ever more science has lost all persuasion, as far as I am concerned. The republic will not be saved by geese, not even by geese with a PhD.

What has the country done to science? In a way, I have already answered the question. When you have been a scientist all your life, going to the laboratory every day and spending all your days among other scientists, it becomes hard to imagine that there still are people in this country other than scientists, although an optimistic forecast made a few years ago promised me that in less than hundred years there would be more scientists than people in the United States. In any event, as I have already mentioned, the country at large views science with great diffidence and often with dislike; and the rain of suspicion falls alike on the guilty and on the just. I don't want to go into the tedious arguments about pollution and DDT and all the rest. I shall also not discuss whether ten million blackbirds ought to have been killed, by Tergitol or otherwise; nor shall I have anything to say about Napalm, that innocent pastime of a Harvard professor.

Our kind of science has become so dependent on public support that nobody seems to be able to do any research without a handout. If their applications are turned down, even the youngest and most vigorous assistant professors stop all work and spend the rest of their miserable days writing more applications. This continual turning off and on of the financial faucets produces Pavlovian effects and a general neurasthenia that are bound to damage science irreversibly. It would have been much better if it had never got so rich before getting so poor, for in the meantime many young people have been lured into a career that may never materialize.

P.S. Not much has changed- probably gone worse ever since.

Steady-state economy and de-growth models of development.

2010-10-24T15:27:00.030-04:00

Since last few years I was wondering how many people this world can sustain. Obviously the answer depends on how we define sustainability and what quality of life we like to have to calculate that number. Initially we used to think that this world can sustain 4 billion people. Later we revised that data to 6 billion. Now we know that world can (rather “have to”) support more than that. One report suggests that we already need 1.2 earth to sustain just our current population (1). Now think that majority of world population (including those in rapidly developing countries like India, China, Brazil etc are nowhere near the desired living standard that people in very few affluent, first world countries enjoy. The same question is intimately related to many other questions related to “sustainability” and "growth", two favorite terms for many, if not majority, corporate, government and even non-profit organizations worldwide. These terms are highly misused or used very vaguely as an advertising tool.

I was also wondering what type of model of development we should have, to sustain this world and our quality of life. It becomes more important for developing countries like India where we almost constantly hear about "development" and conflicts arising from that. In one hand, we hear the conservation and global warming experts and enthusiasts like Al Gore who tell us to consume less, create less carbon footprints in our daily lives. On the other hand, we are constantly hearing many economists and policy makers that we need “growth”, that we need to spend more (i.e consume more). National governments, corporate houses, even NGOs; all are talking about this "growth". From our childhood we had an impression that low or zero “growth” is very bad! I was confused like many other general citizens, who want to behave responsibly. Then I came across an interesting article in a reputed research journal, “EMBO Reports” (Sep 2010 issue, Vol. 11, No. 9, pp. 659-663) (2). Basically the article is about consequences and desirability of a second green revolution to feed ever increasing global population (and eventually turning the world into a giant farmhouse).

The article emphasizes on alternative economic models that recognize ecological limits of human development and emphasize social equality. It described two alternative economic models. The first one proposes a steady-state economy: one that has stopped growing in terms of GDP, but continues to improve quality of life and is maintained by an ecologically sustainable rate of resource throughput and a constant human population. The second one is a sustainable de-growth model that has been defined as “an equitable down-scaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions at the local and global level, in the short and long term”. The paradigm is that human progress without economic growth is possible. It has been shown repeatedly that GDP per capita does not correlate with overall happiness above a certain level of satisfying people’s basic needs. According to a recent article, earning more than a threshold level does not translate into increasing overall happiness and satisfaction of life, while may have negative impact on quality of life. That cut-off value is ~ $ 75,000 per annum per family in USA (as of 2010) (3).

The defenders of de-growth emphasize that this process is “not the same as recession or depression— there should be no social or quality of life deterioration—nor does it promote a return to a fictitious pre-industrial pastoral past”.

It is almost impossible to tame greed of people (for both power and money), mainly the ambitious and intelligent ones that influence public policies and run private industries through the way current “growth” based economic model is practiced. That's one of the reasons why many, including national governments, prefer GDP type macro-economic parameters despite loud demands to adondon GDP as the overriding measure to indicate social and economical development (4). In 1972, the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan opted to base its policy-making on indicators of 'gross national happiness', with King Jigme Singye Wangchuck declaring that this measure was more important than more conventional indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP). Today, after three decades and the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, his remarks seem prescient. A consensus among economists and policy-makers is growing that governments' reliance on GDP as the main proxy for social well-being and progress is leading the world in wrong and unsustainable directions (5).

It raises a serious question that if I have talent and ambition, how much right (both ethical and legal) do I have to get what I want! How beneficial or harmful is the typical “winners take it all” mentality for overall development of any society? Let me re-phrase the question. If powerful countries have the economical, technological and military might, does that give it the right to mow down other countries that does not agree with it OR for expanding its economic and/or political strength at the cost of many other people around the world? And more importantly, how will that affect our own social and economic prosperity?

Anyone can extend the logic at any level- starting from within a family, or an organization, or a city, or a state or a country.

We can do something does not mean that we have to do that

2009-12-29T14:05:00.009-05:00

I was watching the sixth sense technology lecture by Pranav Mistry in TED India forum. No doubt it is a nice idea and I appreciate that. I was checking the comments, and, as expected too many people are excited.

I was dreaming a little further. Suppose I can implant a microprocessor in one’s brain (that can communicate with his own senses), attach that with a broadband network and then enable the person to communicate with the world without any more external device, at any time, day or night. He can get any data, any picture or just anything available in the web. He will be able to store huge information there in his head and never forget anything. If I am successful in doing that and give a lecture on TED forum, I think I will get huge “congratulations” for “extraordinary innovation”, making many Indians “proud” and so on. But, please think little deeper. Do we need such a (bionic) person in the first place? Will that (bionic) person be a better human being, more genius in inventing or innovating? Will it be worth doing so? Should there any of that kind of technology be invented or be allowed? Answer for any of those questions is a big “NO” for me. It seems that it’s almost impossible to make many people understand that we can do something does not mean that we HAVE to do that.

We have enough technology, sufficient medical and agricultural knowhow to make this world a much, much better place. Judicious use of already existing technology, proper application of our current knowledge can make a great difference. In fact, when industrial revolution started in Britain a couple of centuries ago, it promised “eradication of poverty and a more just society”. We all now know that industrialization made things worse. Agrarian societies are fairer, distribution of wealth was more equal. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting going back in time to have an agrarian society.

Most of the time, when we get any new idea, we become so excited that we tend to lose sight of bigger picture. We tend to justify the means than the goal. I know that we probably can not and should not stop innovations; but, I think, it will be better not to lose sight of the bigger picture.

How important money is to decide which profession to join?

2009-09-08T15:39:00.023-04:00

Last few years Indian higher education and research sector is loudly asking for more salary and other financial benefits. Majority of them argue that higher salary will attaract better talents, help improving the rapidly falling quality of Indian higher education and research.

I have a serious problem with the idea that increase in salary and other monetary benefits will increase quality while it definitely attract many un-worthy candidates into that area. If survival and progress of a person in a specific area is not dependent on actual productivity and accountability, then any increase in monetary benefit will create more harm than good.

Currently higher education and research in India is nothing but a tool to address huge unemployment problem without any accountability towards the nation or the subject.

If you do not love a subject but join it simply because of money, then there is a very high chance that you are just mediocre. Your main strategy to survive will be to belong to like minded mediocre people and form a group. Then wipe out any potential trouble maker- in form of genuine talented colleague or a student/junior who reminds you of your mediocrity. The only motivation for such people, in any profession, is money. It’s not very surprising that the main topic of discussion in majority of Indian universities and institutes is salary hike, pay commission, increase in TA-DA, HRA and so on. Very rarely we can hear any scientific discussion. This is not limited to science/research but almost any field of life there. We generally forget that India has substantially increased its higher education and research budget, both in terms of total money and percentage of GDP, since independence. Many new universities and institutes are coming up on a regular basis. Yet published reports show that we going downhill, so far quality is concerned.

Lets check one specific example of highly hyped IT sector in India. Despite of being one of the most prosperous industries, innovation-invention is almost zero. Not a single core software (operating system, JAVA, C++, Oracle etc) is developed by these rich Indian IT companies, using Indian IT professionals. We are happy to apply existing technology to solve customer specific problems and to do routine, maintenance jobs. Why so? Now analyze who is joining IT and why? Any Tom-Dick-Harry can become an “IT professional” who have passed bachelors degree with some math (not always necessary). Few months training will be sufficient to give him/her the job of an “IT professional” that will pay more than a teacher in a collage. On top of that, possibility of lucrative foreign tour/postings (again, mainly for money) provokes many to join IT. In this overwhelmingly majority of mediocrity, original talents in IT are lost. Many great talents in other fields are also lost in this IT-mania. This is one of the reasons why we will never have our own Bill Gates in IT or Obama in Indian politics in near future.

Thankfully, there is no software or fixed rule to generate talents and promote out-of-box thinking. You need to provide suitable environment to groom talented people. Money is needed but if money becomes the sole parameter to decide which profession to join, then all the professions and overall quality of life in that society gets affected. The same is true for almost any profession in India, starting from IAS-IPS (civil servants), to IIT, to IT, to biotech. No amount of screening, no amount of stringency during entrance exams can prevent that. We all know how rigorous UPSC selection process is, yet Indian bureaucracy is the worst in Asia (1). our IT is capable to do routine maintenance jobs, our biotech research is good for imitating western research and technology and/or BPO jobs. Many of these professions are well paid; many of these industries have good financial muscle but still lack originality, still lack efficiency and severely lack accountability towards the profession and towards the society.

I think that there should be legally binding cap (for salaries and executive benefits) for all the top executives of big industries (say, with more than 1 billion USD turn over). I am sure that it will not cause any serious attrition of talents. Talented people will continue to enjoy their professions as before. But such cap will help distributing the money to novel R&D projects, to other junior staff to make their lives little better (to reduce job loss and salary erosion, mainly during recession time like this). Focus on short term gain and over crowding of mediocre people (who joined the job only for money in many financial institutions and banks) are some of the important reasons for our current problem in global economy.

Lately I came across this excellent presentation. It may help you understanding why higher remuneration improves performance only for mechanical or routine jobs while reduce performance when, even, rudimentary cognitive skill is needed. It suggest, "just offer a minimum but enough salary and then take money out of the equation to improve both motivation and performance".

Real talents, the dedicated ones, join a profession they love. Money is important but must not be the main parameter, mainly in creative professions like research. Creative ego, professional success and institutional power (fame) are the most important driving forces for talented people. If someone joins a profession for money and the only day s/he looks forward to go to the office is the salary day then s/he should understand that there is a severe problem.

Definition of intelligence and responsibility of a scientist

2009-08-07T20:51:00.020-04:00

I am sorry if I sounded too “revolutionary” in this lengthy message. I do not think anyone in this world is just average. Everyone have some great talent. It’s up to right grooming and providing right environment that help discovering and then developing such talents. When I play with my very young son, I try to see the world through his eyes and then try to understand the problem he might be facing before asking him to do something different or the same thing differently.

I have doubts about the way IQ is measured and how people are branded “intelligent” or not. How can one say that Einstein is the greatest genius when he could not do many things that a “common Joe” can do without much problem, e.g maintaining a healthy family relationship, respect his wife or not sidelining his wife for his personal fame, inability to foresee how his and many other research were about to be used by policy makers (yes, I am talking about Nuc bomb) and so on. Einstein surely was genius so far physics and mathematics is concerned. But that is not all about life or the world. I think, I should mention “…wherever possible, scientists took advantage of the nation’s appetite for heroes.… Social surveys demonstrated that industrialization had not eradicated poverty and the heroic rhetoric of invention had served its purpose” (source: “The invention of heroes”: Nature 30th July, 2009, pp 572-583).

People like Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey may not be excellent in using latest technology or great in doing complicated physics problems in chimpanzee or gorilla research. But I consider them as one of the finest human being ever lived in this planet. Or how can you compare Vivekananda or Rabindra Nath Tagore or Nelson Mandela with Newton or Edison so far “intelligence” is concerned? Let me phrase my wordings differently: If the ultimate target of science is to make this world a better place (through technology and knowledge) then who is more important, among those people? Some may say these are all irrelevant for a scientist to think about, many say “it’s not our (scientists’) duty to decide how our work is being used by policy makers”, some may agree with me that our ultimate target is to make this world a better place. Some bright medical scientists are very against doing more research to lengthen human life span, as “if we can not control birth then we must not control death”. The consequences are in front of us, mainly in developing countries like India with its high population growth and increasing life expectancy without supporting resources and governance to sustain such a huge population. We also can see huge socioeconomic problems associated with rapid increase of old people in developed countries, without proper care (both mental and physical), living almost meaningless lives.

I am trained (I am avoding the term “education” here) in some specific subjects; know some specific techniques and now trying to solve some of the earthly problems using those. But am I a good “scientist” if I forget where to go, what is the main objective of all these “research”? Once Ex-British PM Tony Blair said something like this, “money was invented to quantify happiness in ancient time but now even economists have forgotten the basic objective and we all are busy in measuring and maximizing money and most of the time it translate into sacrificing happiness”. Deterioration of social values and happiness is a direct consequence of deterioration of our basic education. Have you heard of the term "happiness index" or "happiness quotient"? (you can check: Science of happiness and Politics of happiness).

In other words, introduction of corporate education (invented in the western world, mainly in USA) and adoption of US system around the world made the situation worse. We talk what others want us to talk, we think as others want us to think. It's becoming more and more tough to remain "different", think differently, act differently. We are loosing our personality, our creativity, and above all sacrificing our own happiness in the process. Nowadays we hardly do what makes us happy, but we try to justify what we do. That’s why so many people flock to a profession that can give them money while majority of them could be better in many other professions. Everyone does not have to do IT or biotech or genetic engineering or work on string theory to become intelligent.

I am not an economist and I do not have in-depth knowledge how the society and mankind will be affected if we, majority of human beings, start doing what we love. Will that be good or bad? What is the actual value of an art work (other than box office or business earnings)? Will it be a great idea to allow bees to become extinct and then invest billions of dollars to invent on a technology to pollinate plants or producing industrial honey by chemists! I think the world will become more boring, monotonous and much less productive (even for a genius) if love for doing something is not maintained and encouraged. Supply of factory workers and industrial managers should not be the main target to educate our future generations.

It is the conducive socioeconomic environment that allow people to do what they love and that ultimately groom talents. Scientist (I mean, logical people) should actively take part in framing those policies. We, the scientists, have a bigger responsibility. People with vision must get involved. Some can do it directly while many others can try to build public (Scientific?) opinion for a bigger goal towards a better society.

Listen Jane Goodall in TED

Pic: Jane Goodall with one of her Chimps

Indian Police after 62 years of independence

2009-08-04T20:27:00.010-04:00

This picture is published in a Bengali magazine, “Desh” (17th July 2009, page 75). This is about an ongoing police operation in recently famous (for leftist extremism) Lalgarh area in West Bengal state in eastern India. Is there anything in that picture that strikes you? Apparently not, if you are habituated with daily lives in India. But look closely. You can see a paramilitary force personnel holding an assault rifle wearing a towel around his neck, typically worn by common people in some areas in India. A police personnel wearing a fancy, American style trousers with big side pockets. That cannot be an approved police uniform. Two other police officials are doing their duties with buttons of their shirts wide open. Is this a picture of a state owned, disciplined armed force and that too during an on going operation?

This picture seems to indicate the present status of India. Lawlessness. By the way, the article was not about police indiscipline. There is not much difference between underworld criminals in action and that of a state owned police-paramilitary force. These police and paramilitary personnel have no sense of discipline, no sense of duty. No sane Indian expect these "professionals" to be disciplined. These people know very well that no one can take any action against them, as the higher officials are even less disciplined, less accounted for, and lost almost all moral high ground to punish such “simple mistakes”.

It seems that Indian police-paramilitary is nothing but state owned criminal gangs, devoid of any discipline, duty towards the nation and its people and above all no accountability. Reports of police abuse appear regularly in news media. Our political leadership routinely promises police reform but nothing happens in reality. Today no sane person prefers to go to police and ask any help, even to report any crime. General people are showing increasing tendency to take laws into their own hands. Police abuse give rise to more anger and give birth to many more terrorists and extremist as compared to any ideology (e.g Islamic terrorism, Maoism etc.). Indian police live on with its pre-independence mentality and brutality; always reminds our colonial past.

Indian policy makers should remember that development of few people cannot be termed as development of the country. One of the main parameters for a civilised nation is to provide an environment of security and affordable and speedy justice. But such a police force can never help towards that goal but can only make things worse.

Can a true rational person compartmentalize inquisitiveness and rational thinking?

2009-07-27T14:06:00.011-04:00

The basic qualities of a scientist or any truly educated person are rational thinking and inquisitiveness. I think a true scienctific mind can never restrict his/her abilities limited only to his/her area of work but will apply to each and every aspect of life. Sometimes it may create problems for the person to live a “normal” life, mainly in a conservative society in countries like India. It can also become a bit painful experience when s/he start applying these qualities to ask questions and re-visit traditions, religion and religious beliefs that we imbibe since our childhood; from our parents, relatives and society. I know it is always a tricky issue to mix science with religion and tradition. I also should make it clear that my intension is not to hurt any religious sentiment here.
Let me give an example: In India majority are Hindus and so are majority of Indian “scientists”. Many of us believe that beef eating is not allowed in Hinduism, which is clearly not true, as per historians and social scientists. Many of Hindu “scientists” religiously follow that so-called religious custom and never eat beef for “religious” reason. There are many such rituals that we follow in the name of tradition and religion. This attitude gave rise to a very conservative and close society even among so-called educated people, as I think. It has a bigger impact on society when an established “scientist” follows such rituals. It strengthens many superstitions in the name of religion/tradition among common Indian people, who are not that much literate or well informed. I think I should make it clear that respect to one’s heritage and acknowledgement of one’s past is a different issue as compared to accepting and encouraging distorted version of religion and negative aspects of tradition. We need to keep in mind that single most important reason of killing people is religion since pre-historic time and India has more than fair share in that number. Mass murder, brutal torture of weaker sections of our society (e.g aganist women) in the name of religion/tratidion is still a burning issue in Indian society which mainly originates from ill-informed notion about “religion” and lack of transparent, rational thinking.

I am not advocating that all scientists or truly educated people to start a mass movement to eradicate religious superstitions and social prejudices leaving less time for their main profession. I am wondering how hard it will be for us to set examples to others (mainly to our students and juniors) by our own deeds in personal lives. I do not think it will take any extra time away from our research or teaching. I have seen many Indian “scientists” wearing rings with gem stones to rectify some "rogue" star/planets to change their misfortunes. Whatever such scientist/teachers teach in a class or in his/her lab, is not going to make his/her students more rational and “educated” in real sense.
What we do has more profound impact on our students and juniors than what we actually preach in classes. As a teacher our duty is not only to train some techniques and transfer information in the name of “education” and “professionalism”, but also to train them, to encourage them to become a better human being, to gather the courage and wisdom not only to remain personally honest but to oppose corruption in an effective way. I am not asking my students or juniors or friends to become a martyr by opposing crimes and corruption of powerful people in a country like India but simply asking them to think of a better way to do it without sacrificing too much. The best and most effective way we can do, as I think, is by setting standard for ourselves.

My questions are:

1. Does a truly educated person have the social responsibility to behave a bit more responsibly with more open, logical attitude outside of his/her area of work?

2. If the answer to my previous question is yes; then, can we afford to continue compartmentalizing inquisitiveness and rational thinking?

3. Lastly, is it at all possible to become rational in some issues but not in many others?

Primary and secondary education reform should be India's top priority

2009-04-11T23:35:00.010-04:00

There were only 20 universities and 500 colleges in the Indian subcontinent (including Bangladesh and Pakistan) in 1947, the year of Indian independence. Now there are about 376 universities and 17,700 colleges in India only, many with world class physical infrastructure. Many private research institutes are also coming up on a regular basis. The only Nobel prize for India (Indian citizen at the time of the award) in science for C. V. Raman (1930, University of Calcutta) also came in that era. We also had many world class scientists during that time (e.g Satyen Bose, J. C. Bose, Homi Bhaba etc). Now India is the second fastest growing in the world and third largest economy in Asia with huge budget in so-called education and research. But we do not have any world class scientist (who has the slightest chance to get Nobel Prize in science) in India (as per a survey published in a reputed Bengali magazine, “Desh”, sometime ago).

We see huge uproar when previous government wanted to “introduce accountability” in some elite institutes like IIM or IITs but we never see a fraction of that excitement among educated middle class people or our political masters to reform primary and secondary education although our primary and secondary education system, the backbone of our country, is in a pathetic shape. Our middle class people, who can not afford to send their kids abroad (like our socio-political “elites”) but dream to have a better, more powerful and comfortable life for their kids (and to them through their kids) do not allow any meaningful reform of primary and secondary education since independence.

Our current education system selectively discards talented students with inquisitiveness, ability to ask questions and dream to do something challenging, something better for the society. Now we only produce private tuition and coaching enabled, mugging-up grade technicians who are great to do routine jobs (as in IT or BT) or imitating others (mainly true for Indian R&D sector in any branch of science and in any industry), but not capable of doing original research, despite of having many world class physical infrastructure, huge budget and some so-called “elite” institutes. My recent experience with many graduate students form some high profile Indian institutes/universities indicate that the trend to emphasize on database type knowledge, quiz type information and fascination with techniques (not science as such) are still highly prevalent. No wonder India is among the least innovative nations in the world. Quality of Indian science education and research is going down at an alarming rate since independence, despite of huge increase in funding (1, 2, 3 and Balaram, P (2002): Science in India- Signs of Stagnation. Current Science 82, 193-194.).

We need to invest much more and have an intensive and proper supervision of primary and high school education than wrongly focusing on higher education and research at the top level, at this time. Recently passed Right to education bill is a step towards the right direction. But here again we need to remember that many such great policies hardly achieve anything in reality and only limited within government files and the money ends up in the pockets of few selected people. Whatever money we spend on higher education and research is not going to give us any novel knowledge or technological edge unless we have right candidate behind the costly machines we buy. Now we produce mainly technicians, not scientists or technocrats and feel proud to export such raw materials to manpower-starved developed countries (be it IT or BT, the two main pillars of Indian economy today). This might lead to some degree of prosperity in the short term but we are going to loose in a big way in the long run unless we totally overhaul our basic education system at primary and high school level. It’s useless to cut the roots and then water on the top. Universal and quality primary and high school education will also bring many other positive socio-political changes in our system that can propel India to attain its rightful position in the world.

Some relevant facts:
· "The study of 188 government-run primary schools in central and northern India revealed that 59% of the schools had no drinking water facility and 89% no toilets; and, most alarmingly, a large number of teachers were found to be absent at the time of the survey. With a literacy rate (percentage of adults who can read and write) of 65%, India compares poorly to not just industrialised nations but also several much-poorer economies, such as Vietnam (90% literacy), Zambia (80%), Tanzania (77%), and Cambodia (70%)".

· "Only 21% of the teachers in Bihar are class X pass. In one of the most prosperous states in India, Gujarat, over 55% of the teachers have not got beyond the secondary stage of schooling. The only state which comes near Gujarat in terms of the low quality of teachers is Karnataka, another highly prosperous state in India, with about three-fourths of its teachers having studied only up to the higher secondary level". Such data also implied that prosperity of few people (that inflate the macro level data like GDP, par capita income) does not mean prosperity for common people (or the country as a whole). The same “prosperous” states like Gujarat and Karnataka also do worse as compared to “least developed” states like Assam in term of hunger and social well being (the overall hunger index for India is worse than many “least developed” countries” like Cuba, Uganda, Sudan, even our arch rival Pakistan). Such facts imply that “trickle down” effect of “development” or “prosperity” as many seem to justify, can never be translated to the common people of the country unless strict oversight and transparency in governance is present. This is true for any country, be it USA or India.

PS: There is a related topic in “Nature India forum” on “How to improve India's higher education and research quality?”. I also published this blog in the same “Nature India Forum” sometime ago. Readers can read the discussion part there and are welcome to post their comments there too.

How confident we should be about Indian health system and doctors?

2008-01-31T07:22:00.015-05:00

India was once regarded as having one of the best medical professionals in the world. Indian doctors are still in high demand in many countries. But what is the actual situation of health system and condition of that lot of professionals in India? Not very encouraging, to say the least.

Since last few decades urban India has seen an unprecedented rise in cesarean delivery of pregnant women. There is hardly any normal delivery, mainly in urban India ( who has access and can afford health care) these days. This menace is fast spreading in rural India. World Health Organization (WHO) states that, "both very low and very high rates of caesarean section can be dangerous, but the optimum rate is unknown. Pending further research, users of this handbook (2009) might want to continue to use a range of 5-15%".

Unnecessary and sometimes downright harmful pathological and others tests are being recommended by doctors is a norm. Unnecessary prescribing vitamin tablets and tonic formulations is a very routine phenomenon. Doctors are increasingly being influenced and bribed by drug and other companies involved in medical practice (drug or equipment or technology/kit business establishments). Illegal and selective girl child abortion by majority of private clinics and nursing homes is routine now. Substandard blood donation camps (a good source of earning for local clubs/youths) and highly profitable illegal business involving that blood is no more restricted to private clinics or nursing homes but has spread its tentacles in govt hospitals. No wonder infected blood, such unhealthy blood donation camps and business involving such tainted blood are a big source for AIDS infection and its spread in India. India is now among the major hubs of illegal human organ trade on a global scale.

Undertaking dubious clinical trials (mainly, but not exclusively, using semi-literate and oppressed section of our society as guinea pigs) of drugs developed by multinational drug companies is a highly flourishing business involving many high profile Indian private companies, nursing homes and hospitals. Doctors and so-called scientists are increasingly entering the domain of crime using their noble profession and lack of effective consumer protection as a shield. Sometimes angry mob beat up suspected doctors and vandalize nursing homes/clinics. But that is neither enough nor desirable for a civilized society. Most of the time doctors involved in such crimes are not punished. Many high profile doctors in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata etc regularly pay “hafta” (protection money) to local mafias and politicians to cover their crimes. Considering the ground realities in India, it’s not surprising that our so-called "educated" people, other doctors, scientists are just silent spectators to tolerate such corruption by many of their "successful" colleagues.

It raises the following questions:

1. Can we really perceive the extent of damage it does to not only to our present but also to our future?

2. How far we can tolerate such crimes?

3. And what should we do?

Some relevant stories and links:

“In India, poor and illiterate patients are being used to test new drugs for the West and some are unaware they are even taking part in clinical trials”.

"By 2010, some estimate there will be two million patients in India on clinical trials....Six years ago, an experimental drug from the US called M4N was injected into cancer patients in India without being properly tested on animals first".

Clinical trials claimed 25 lives in 2010, only 5 paid compensation. Families of five of these victims received "compensation for trial related death" — the amount ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.

According to one BBC report, 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India over the past 20 years.

"He has discovered through a survey of people in the West Midlands who bought kidneys abroad that one in eight died within a couple of months of their operation and two-thirds returned with serious complications. India is one of a number of countries in the world with a thriving black-market, dealing in the sale of human kidneys". A BBC report on illegal kidney racket in India. A NDTV video and Indian Express report on the same.

A milestone case involving the murder of the wife of a US based Indian doctor in West Bengal, alleged by deliberate negligence by doctors. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) supported the alleged doctors, as expected (2, 3, 4).

“Thousands of people may have been given contaminated blood that was tested with kits whose expiry dates had either been tampered with or which had passed their use-by dates during the past one year” (1, 2) .

A number of states might have bought faulty blood test kits from the Sarda-owned Monozyme India, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee revealed today.

A mob ransacked four wards and the superintendent’s office at the famous RG Kar Medical College.

Is India a better place to bring up kids?

2007-12-04T14:00:00.010-05:00

This is a serious dilemma for many parents face while living abroad. Many of them site that as the main reason to go back to India and settle there. They think prevailing situation and surrounding conditions in India will teach their kids to learn “Indian culture”. The question has two parts. First what do we mean by “bringing up”. Secondly what do we mean by “Indian Culture” that many of us are so desperate to teach that to their kids?

To me bringing up implies to help the kid to become a better and total human being. Formal education is only a part of that. But the main aspect is learned from parents, society and surrounding environment.

The pressure to succeed there in India is so high that our own parents want us to prosper in every aspect of life. They forcefully impose almost all of their unfulfilled desires on those kids. In India today, we hardly behave in a honest, rational way. Our present society does not support honesty, as a virtue but consider it as a “drag” force to become "successful". We teach our kids the same in the name of reality.

We see good number of kids going to school with heavy load of books and return home to do huge home-work. After coming back from the school they go to music class, then swimming, then home work and so on… They are too busy to spend time with parents. Very limited free time they get, they prefer to spend with TV and/or video games, while kids in the past used to read comic or other books or listening fairy tales from grandparents. This change in habit reduces their ability to imagine, to think “unthinkable”. Parents themselves “cannot afford” to remain honest and straightforward in present Indian society. They hardly can protect their own dignity, be it in a office, or in a housing society etc., if they try to behave in honest ways, if they oppose corruptions and so on. So no amount of mugging up “honesty is the best policy” can ever have its intended result. The kids grow up with a distorted vision about life. They learn to accept corruption, not to oppose it in the name of “practical sense”. Money becomes almost the sole purpose of life. Accumulation of money and power start becoming the only yardstick to judge “success”. I agree that it's almost a global problem; but in India, it already has taken the dimension of an epidemic. And globalization is making it worse. We are loosing our good values fast while adopting cheap and easy imitable negative aspects of western culture.

In India, we learn that we can get away with almost any sin or crime by bribing even God, leave alone government officials and bureaucrats. Many of us feel that observing some bratas and offering costly items to God is sufficient to continue doing crimes or overcome our own limitations (failure to become rich, failure to pass school exams, inability to find suitable spouse and so on). When we see highly corrupt people (e.g. a well known political leader, film actor, industrialist etc) offers huge money and costly ornaments in the famous temple in Tirupati and media loudly praises that, then we need to acknowledge there is a serious problem with the society.

Our highly “educated” and “religious” moms teach their kids not to help any other kid in the school or society. It's not surprising when mom teaches not to share pencil box, not to give extra food or information to other kids. The kids start learning that showing off (money, power, degree etc.) is the best policy to hide any form of deficiencies or inabilities. From the beginning they learn that admitting fault and ignorance is a serious crime. So it does not surprise me when most of the Indians always try to shift responsibilities and blame others or the "system". They feel ashamed to admit that s/he does not know something but try his/her best first to confuse and then divert the subject than to admit their ignorance. It not only deprives them from knowing the right thing but also expose their lack of proper education. Many parents blindly follow some rituals in the name of “tradition” or “religion” which they cannot explain to their curious kids. Then they take help of phrases like “you should not question when elders ask you to do something” or "you will know when you grow old". It not only hurt kid's psychology but also trains him/her to loose his/her ability to think independently and ask questions. It has severe consequences not only for the kid but also for the nation as a whole. We see the same trend in homes, societies, schools and collages. As a result India now produces mainly technician grade professionals who can walk only through the roads invented and developed by others. We can not make basic computer software like C++ or JAVA or operating systems like Windows or Linux, despite of being the global “power house” in IT. Our much-hyped Biotechnology sector can only boast to produce generic drugs (patent expired drugs) and copying some products by stealing/breaking patent laws of other countries (using the loopholes of Indian patent law). Published articles show that the quality of science and research in India is going down day-by-day, despite of huge increase in fund allocation. India now simply supplies scientific/technical coolies worldwide. And due to lack of interest and incentive in science education and research among people of developed countries, Indian techie/science coolies survive there nicely as well.

Many studies showed that kids need to play in natural surroundings with bushes, ponds, forest etc. to have a healthy body and mind. But today Indian kids in cities and smaller towns hardly have anything else to do but to waste time in front of TV or video games. It’s almost impossible for kids to play, explore and spend time with nature, even if their parents want. Land sharks and unplanned growth reduced that probability to a worrying level. Running after money and busy schedule of parents prevent them from spending time with their kids. Many of them wrongly think money can buy “education” (they can not differentiate between scoring high marks and buying degrees with education), even “culture” and happiness; for them and for the kids. This is a very pervasive disease in Indian society today. It’s not surprising at all when the kids grow up and kick out the old parents. Then the parents must not blame the “system” or write songs, poems on “old-age homes”. They are responsible for their own fate and fate of the country as a whole. For many people, bringing up means enabling kids to earn money and survive with reasonable personal comfort. India is surely the place where they can get a cheap and affective training (I am avoiding the term “education” here) to do just that. But others, who still believe that bringing up means infusing a positive value system and a dream to make this world better place, need to think many times before opting for an option to bring up their beloved children in India.

If the child is a girl, then it becomes more problematic. In India, we hardly allow a girl child to develop properly, with an analytical mind and a strong body. We kill most of her qualities (as a human being) in the very beginning and allow her to grow only as a “girl”, playing with dolls, tolerating all the bullying by the society and even by the members in her own family.

Here in the western world, there is a higher chance that the kid will do something they enjoy. They will not be forced to study medicine or engineering or science when they love journalism or cooking or singing or studying philosophy. So there is a higher chance that s/he will love what s/he does and the probability to excel in that field is much higher. The probability of the girl child to blossom into a woman with stronger body and logical mind is much higher in a western society as compared to India.

If the kid cannot read Rabindra Nath Tagore, cannot enjoy Durga Puja, can not eat hilsa fish, but enjoy reading Rohl Dahl, sign Celine Dion, enjoy rib-eye steaks, but is a good and honest human being who dream to make this world a better place, I’ll be proud of such kids (despite of being a proud Indian and Bengali myself).

Urban terrorism in India

2007-10-15T13:05:00.010-04:00

These days we are hearing a lot about “urban terrorism” in India. Many Indians now wonder if that will be a part of our daily lives. Such noise became lauder after some recent bomb blasts in many Indian cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ajmer shrine, Ludhiana etc. Modern day terrorism almost always target urban areas to maximize damage and collateral impact. Though the foot soldiers are recruited form the impoverished population in both rural and urban areas. On the other hand rural India always suffers from terrorism, be it by religious fundamentalism/superstition, oppression by landlords, politicians and police/bureaucrats. Rural mass in India accepted terrorism as a way of life since independence. After some sporadic violent movements in the past (e.g Naxal movement in West Bengal in 70's), rural India is now showing some sign of systematic opposition against rural terrorism and neglect by the political masters and ruling class of India. Now we see in almost all the states in India are affected by extremist Mao-ist, communist movements. Proponents of such violent movements think that they can cure cancer by infecting with HIV-AIDS virus. On the other hand, such movements can simply be described as an expression of frustration against existing law and order system and social and economic injustices. Many Indians think that India never got true freedom on 15th August 1947; only the power to rule India and its people simply changed hands. Before it was the British and later a few “brown sahibs” of Indian origin got that power. Situation for common Indians did not change. Quality of lives of majority Indians could not keep pace with that of common people in many other countries in the world and also with India’s own economic prosperity since 90's.

The “hunger index” of India is worse than even Pakistan in recently published report (2007). A recent (2008) BBC article citing International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report ranks India at 66 out 88 countries, so far hunger is concerned. That report also points out that economic prosperity of a state in India does not always translate to a better, overall situation for common people. Highly prosperous states like Gujarat and Karnataka (that houses Indian silicone-valley, Bangalore) are worse in hunger index as compared to less developed states like Assam. India is slipping down in that key index as compared to its own position in 1990, despite a spectacular growth in GDP. Now India has the second fastest growing economy in the world and third largest in Asia. But, like many other social and environmental issues, the target fixed by India itself to reduce hunger was fallen far behind. The “Corruption index” for India is deteriorating further (1). India now has the highest death due to diarrhoea in the world. Nearly two-third of India has no access to sanitation even today. In terms of malnutrition among children, India today found itself ranked with Ethiopia. India is now home for one third of the world’s 146 million undernourished children according to a recent Unicef report. As expected, India is widely off track of the child mortality target as well. Judiciary is as good as non-functional (1).

What does it all mean? Only a handful of people are being benefited by the economic prosperity so far. Common people are facing the same hardship, all round corruption and environmental pollutions. So it’s not surprising that people in many states are not reporting crimes to police but punishing any suspected criminals by their own. Mass fury is unleashing against alleged corrupt “fair price” shop, popularly known as “ration” dealers in rural areas in West Bengal state. Now there is almost no one to complain to, against any social or economic injustices and expect a speedy redressal. What options people do have but to take laws in their own hands? It was the same for rural India since independence. But now due to wide reach of TV, Internet and other sources of information, they are becoming aware and have started demanding their share. We are generally oblivious about rural India, as that does not affect our daily lives in the cities with sparkling shopping malls, flyovers, 5-star hotels etc. But when a bomb rips apart a bus or a train or a temple, we suddenly wake up and start shouting about “urban terrorism”. We never think that it was inevitable. India is facing and will continue to face this modern form of urban terrorism unless overall change in the system is enforced. Huge unemployment, poverty and lack of impartial law and order implementation (please don’t confuse that to laws and clauses in the constitution) will always add fuel to the religion and caste based hatred and violence. Indian society and politics are too weak and fragmented to stop it. Although we will hear the same song and excuses by our political masters after every instance of terrorism, be it in Ajmer or Ludhiana or Hyderabad or Mumbai or Kashmir or NE states, the list is too long. After every act of terrorism our masters will congratulate us for “showing courage” in ignoring terrorism. They probably are too scared and/or too shrewd to admit that common Indians have no option but to go to their works for their families to survive.

India on its 60th Birthday

2007-08-10T11:26:00.003-04:00

I read a nice article in BBC news web site about Pakistani society. The situation in Pakistan, just one day older nation than ours, is not much different than most of the countries in the third world, particularly in Asia, including Indian subcontinent and Middle East. In all these countries "It is the ruling class that routinely breaks the law and considers it a privilege". Indian ruling class is no different than that of its Pakistani counterpart. "The people of this country have learnt to live in a system heavily skewed against them. They look for short cuts, they bribe their way, they use friends' and family's influence, they lie through their teeth, they plead and they threaten because there is no straightforward way to get things done"- is equally true for India.

Situation has not much changed since independence; so far common people of the country are concerned. In fact, according to many reports it has been deteriorated, despite of huge improvement in financial situation of some people of the country. Today when we see flood pictures from Bihar, UP, Assam and many other parts in India, we hardly can differentiate between Bangladesh, Pakistan and some sub-Saharan African states with India. General health index of common Indians are among the worst in the world (according to UN report), so does education; the two main pillars of any civilized society and prosperous nation. Please don’t site 4000 IIT grads or 5 lakhs IT professionals or so in a country of about 120 crores. Quality of education, wide spread corruption even in different joint entrance exams, drop out rate and literacy rate in India is still very worrying.

We are still maintaining a feudal society. Even today, sons and daughters of powerful people go abroad, buy degrees from prestigious universities in Europe or US but hardly get true education. These people comeback and do the same thing as their parents and grand parents did. The cycle goes on. Many of our corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and industry captains do possess heavy-weight degrees.

It’s due to the same reason why many Indians, particularly Non Residential Indians, behave like feudal lords and demand royal treatment particularly when they are in India but sometimes in abroad as well. A truly educated person will be ashamed to its core to behave in such a way. The most unfortunate thing is that many of these people themselves prefer to settle in a western country rather than in a country, which has same type (Indian style) of society and law and order situation. They want the peaceful and prosperous life of a western country but at the same time they desire to have all the extra-constitutional privileges they are so used to in their own countries and societies. It’s not surprising that middle class and upper class Pakistanis and people from such societies/countries are the main driving force to organize and mobilize the jehadi agenda in US and Europe, as they do not get the extra-constitutional privileges here and get upset. These extra-constitutional privileges are also one of the main reasons why many such people prefer to go back to thier home countries.

The most deprived, under-privileged people are taking up arms to protest against such feudal system in India these days. Many times they are highly exploited by religious leaders, rich businessmen/industrialists and shrewd politicians. It’s not very surprising that practically no state in India is free from organized extremist violence these days. Is that the way to solve our problems? May be yes, may be no; but one thing I am sure about, India is maturing. It’s like bringing up an intelligent, healthy child who has loads of curiosity but don't know what and how to prioritize and the consequences. With proper, honest guidance and effort it has the ability and resources to become a prosperous and happy nation. But who will give this honest, able guidance? We can blame the politicians, but the fact remains that this situation will not change until a good number of honest people take up politics as a profession. They may not be able to do so while studying or working, but can think of it after retirement. If “good” people do not come, the positions will not remain vacant but will be occupied by these parasites and the country will continue to suffer.

The least we can do, for the time being, is to speak up in whatever forum we can against hypocrisy, corruption and cruelty we encounter in our daily life.

What is Education?

2007-07-03T11:28:00.009-04:00

Last night I watched a couple of movies. First one was “Agantuk” and then “Sakha Prasakha” by Satyajit Ray. Today I watched CNN news that Lewis Libby, a convicted former US vice-presidential aide, has been pardoned by US president. US Supreme Court sentenced Mr. Libby to two-and-a-half years in prison, two years of probation and a fine of $250,000. Sometime ago, I got an offer for a job with a specific US visa that required the prospective employer to give me a certain minimum salary. But the employer asked me to sign a document stating that I get the stated minimum salary while my actual salary would be less than that minimum salary. All the people concerned in the foresaid stories have one common virtue. All are well “educated” people breaking laws but do not find anything wrong in that. Such people include US president; aid of US vice president, a university professor in US and a highly educated entrepreneur in US. In short, all are successful people with some heavy weight degrees from some best universities in the world.

When I was a kid, my parents and many teachers in our village school used to tell us that we need to be a good human being first and then anything else. Marks in exams, monetary success all were non-issue for them. I learned that the main goal of education is to become a "good human being”. But when I see around after earning some heavy weight degrees, I realized that the aim of education is not to become a better human being but to gain knowledge to fool others without being caught. I started thinking if institutional education system teach us only that much to enable us to serve our masters and earn money, as much as we can. If we can do that, we will be considered “successful” and also “highly educated”.

In this world there is almost no place of sympathy, empathy to other less fortunate people around us, leave alone other animals. Educated professionals in present day world do not care much about anything other than his/her career. We do not care much but accept as "reality" about- sky high corruption in most of the third world countries like India, ethnic cleansing in Dafur, civil unrest in Sierra Leon, blood diamond in Congo, cleansing of rain forest, wiping out habitats of many animals, global warming… the list is endless. Many of the “educated” people tell, “why should I need to know all those”? Some consider those as "part of life and we need to accept the reality". Some are scared when they see Islamic terrorism on TV and don’t know “why these people are so angry and violent!”. Some assure themselves that they donate money when organizations ask and he feels like. This reminds me about my days in Calcutta University. I used to (rather, had to) donate money for students’ union, run and managed by SFI (student wing of the communist party). Not because I believe in their ideology but to avoid problem (fear of being out-of- fashion of being “intellectual” and humiliation).

More the world is getting populated more we are loosing faith on sympathy and empathy. One reason is surely competition. Worldwide reach of information explosion is another reason. In not so distant past economic backward people used to avoid effluent people thinking that they are more intelligent, hard working and noble. That’s why they are rich. Due to that awe, they used to keep a distance. But now they know (through wide reach of TV, internet etc) that this “elite” class is no more intelligent, no more hard working and no less corrupt than most other people. So people do not hesitate to grab the collar of a Vice Chancellor of a university or a bureaucrat or a doctor with slightest provocation. Can we blame those students or people when they do such thing? I don’t think so. To me all these behavior is a ramification of loosing our value system in our education. Many of us read great books, watch great movies, listen great songs but we hardly learn anything from those. As a person we remain the same; same corrupt, same dishonest, same hypocrite, follow the same sycophancy.

"Education" no longer grooms people to become a better, civilized human being. It only teaches us the art and knowledge to serve our master (employer), gather degrees (to distinguish ourselves from others) and most importantly, accumulate money by whatever means deemed necessary. It enables us to survive with a degree of personal comfort, but hardly prepares us to dream of a better world.

Nice video presentation on the same topic by Sir Ken Robinson.

Economic prosperity vs social disparity- dictates quality of life

2007-05-15T11:59:00.022-04:00

I was born and brought up in a village in India. Before I came out of India, life was just fine there. I had no problem to accept the reality of life there. But now after living in some West-European countries and then US for some years, my views about life have changed. My perception about law and order has changed. Which used to be a natural phenomenon during my teens and early adulthood is not so now.

I like to give one example. When I was in Mumbai, I learned that school fee in one of the famous primary cum high schools there is about 5 lakhs (INR) per annum! There is another international school in Navi Mumbai that charges about 7 lakhs (INR) per annum as fees. Then I started gathering information about the quality of education, salaries of teachers, facilities etc which can justify that high tuition fee. I was wondering how many Indians can afford that fee and what social impact it has. Then I realized that such schools only train young Indian (not so proud to be an Indian though) kids to learn western culture (wearing ties, well ironed dresses, polished shoes, using knives and forks while eating, American or British slangs etc). Education is not the most important in their agenda. Parents of such kids are mostly businessmen/ industrialists/ bureaucrats/ executives in private companies and so on. They perceive "education" just as another commodity- buy it, use it, and throw it as and when needed.

Of course, you can get your kids admitted to a less expensive schools or free government schools. But you will not like that idea much. Kids from such "poor", vernacular schools have less chance of "success" as these high profile schools have great and seemingly mysterious power to influence mark scoring ability and success rate in many different competitive exams, as well as in selling themselves in the job market. No, parents do not ask where so many "successful" young talents get lost in subsequent years! We do not see them in any novel research or technology development or any creative art. We also know such kids do great in earning money as a technician; by successfully performing routine- management or engineering or medical practitioner or "research" duties. Their main success lies in doing the jobs that require good inter-personal, soft skills more than independent and analytical thinking. This is just the beginning of a mediocre, hierarchical society where the difference between haves and have-nots will increase in subsequent years in one's life.

Now think, how much you need to earn to spend about 5 lakhs per annum for your kid’s schooling (that too only tuition fee), leave alone the other educational activities like games and sports, creative art etc? A decent apartment (3 bedroom, hall, kitchen) in a decent locality in Navi Mumbai will cost you around 60 lakhs (with a EMI of ~ 60,000/- per month), a decent car (Honda City) will have an monthly EMI of ~ 20,000/-. So how much monthly take home salary you need to have to afford a “decent” (in western stdard) life there? Now you can easily understand what type of people you, your family and kid will be surrounded with (in your kids's school, in your apartment, neighborhood etc.)? Surely your neighbors will be rich enough but not necessarily the desirable one from whom your kid or you might expect some deeds and lessons of honesty and morality.

One government data, published recently, showed that about 34% of Indians earn less than Rs 450/- per month. About 80% of Indians live below a monthly income of Rs 2000/-. There is no doubt that India is doing great, so far GDP/total money earning is concerned (about 9% annual increase in GDP). But as one Indian cabinet minister told, “this development is limited to only 0.2% of population”. This is a very frightening; so far social development and national well-being is concerned. The growth rate in terms of GDP or FDI is helping increasing the social disparity (though not the only reason for that). As a result, people are now chasing a dream of economic prosperity without having supporting infrastructure (law and order, good governance etc).

Nowadays internal terrorism and extremist communist (naxal) movement is more of an alternative profession than a fight for ideology. Such extremism is raising its head almost all over the country. An Indian teen of about 12 years does not hesitate to throw a grenade in a crowed market place for only Rs. 120/-. He was not part of any “terrorist” group though (as published in Indian Express). This, in turn, is bound to affect our day-to-day life in India. Nandigram/Singur is and will not be any isolated incidence. In fact, from my personal experience as an executive with an Indian MNC, I know that West Bengal Govt gave more support price for unit land to the concerned farmers than many MNCs and other state Govt (mainly for SEZ and some big projects) in many places in India.

The development in India is generating more social disparity as a “drag force” that can not be overcome by economic prosperity of a small section of the population. You surely can buy a great car but will not have a great road to drive that; you can buy a great apartment but you need to keep its windows almost always closed. You can never roam in a forest (anti-social/terrorist infested); you can never enjoy fishing or a boat ride through the river (fully polluted and smelly). Natural resources are disappearing at a very alarming rate.

It will be more frustrating if you try to do something to improve the situation there. Then you/your family/parents will be marginalized and/or even (physically) threatened. In short, economic prosperity will not lead to have a better quality of life due to social disparity. It is not so surprising that young Indians are now too much obsessed with money, only money. That’s the main reason they are the most optimistic people in the world, as per Forbes survey. It says, “But even though Indians are the happiest, the numbers of those satisfied aren’t very high. In Europe, most young people seek a good living environment above all and work-related aspects in life are relatively less important. But the priorities of Indian youth and young people in other “new economies” are different- for them, work, a good career and a position with high status are what matters”.

I am not going into the subject of happiness quotient that western leaders have started appreciating to evaluate the well being of their country and efficacy of their policies.

Despite of all these, I still feel that the smile of a kid, the serene beauty of a few remaining natural masterpieces there, worth taking the risk. Initially I thought that it would be better to try to change the system being a part of the system. But after my recent experiences there, I do feel that it makes more practical sense to do something if I am not part of that corrupt system. At least I am not accountable to that system and (mostly) beyond the reach of the custodians of the system there (who have their own interests to maintain the status-quo). I can insulate me and my family from the criminals and crimes ruling my country today, while contributing towards betterment of the society there.

1 lakh= 0.1 million; 1 crore= 10 million; 1 USD ($)= ~ 47 Indian rupees (INR )

God created man or man created God?

2007-05-11T10:15:00.004-04:00

During early days of human civilization, we felt very insecure and helpless in front of natural calamities and search for food. We gradually tried to adjust, understand and sometimes overcome such problems. The main stratagy to do that was to organize people and act as a group. That gave rise to group activities like hunting, cultivation etc. It increased their chance of success and survival. During this process men gradually understood its own limitation. So they conceived the existence of supernatural power, which they thought are behind all those forces. They also started believing that such supernatural forces strike when they are not happy. They tried to keep them happy. They developed a set of rituals, “warship”, as the means to keep these “Gods” or “spirits” happy. Each group of people tried to conceive the supernatural powers according to their own experience. If they liked particular meat or drink, they used to offer those to their “Gods”. “Gods” also started looking like them, physically. So the same “God” is not exactly the same in southern India as compared to that of northern India. Even definition of “God” varies from region to region. Ravana may be a demon in most of India but many people in Sri Lanka and southern India consider him as “God”. As most of the natural calamities used to be the same e.g. rain, flood, storm-wind, draught-sun, wild beasts etc, many of such supernatural powers had high similarities (though not identical) world over. Gradually all such activities and concepts gave rise to religion. Basically religion was evolved mainly to make societies more organized and to involve everybody to participate in different activities or "rituals", for betterment of the society. “Religion” made implementing the rules much easier, as punishment was stipulated to be high. This gave rise to the concept of virtue and vice. Breaking the rules were equated to sin or vice while obeying those were termed as virtues. Here we should keep in mind that all such rules were made by human, most probably the pack leaders of concerned groups. During early phase of human evolution and the initial days of “religion”, all were busy to ensure their own survival. So they all were interested to search the reason, in other words, the truth (mainly behind natural calamities, food supply and reproduction). Later life became a bit easier due to many innovations and inventions. Then the main evolution of religion started (as we see it today).
Ancient religions are more inclined to have idol worshipping and have many Gods/Goddesses to take care of natural causes like wind, rain, flood, life threatening animals, birth, death etc. Example of such religion is Hinduism, religions from ancient Egypt, Greece etc. Many tribes in India and abroad practice such type of “religion” with many Gods. More recent religions like Islam, Christianity etc are more like an "ideology". Almost all of such recent religions conceive a single "God" and the person who introduced that “ideology” became a “prophet”; as compared to many "Gods" in ancient religions. Such difference indicates the ultimate motive behind the introduction of such religions. It's like establishing an "ideology" mainly to prove one's supremacy than to motivate survival of a group of people. It’s the same psychology with which a king rules his subject. Evolution of such recent religions was possible as life became easier. Creation and spread of such recent religions also affected ancient religions. Leaders of those who were practicing “ancient” religions tried to invent some new “rituals” (which was not originally there) to strengthen their own grip over wealth and power. “Satidaha” (burning of brides), no beef eating, many marriages by men but not by women etc by Hindus are some of this type of “rituals”. As people and their leaders from different religions came in contact of each other, competition to prove ones’ supremacy became more intense.
To maintian the social order and their own supremacy, group-leaders did not encourage asking question. They started implementing their own version of “truth” in the name of religion. It became the norm. Gradually every religion started demanding un-questionable faith. “Search for truth” soon became the fight to establish one’s own version of “truth”. Now we see the fight among human beings to prove that their version of “truth” is more “true” than that of others! This deformed version of “religion” allegedly is the single most important reason for human sufferings, conflicts and death in the past and remains so even today.

Reservation policy in India: Long term planning needed to serve justice to all

2006-06-13T18:44:00.011-04:00

I am from a small town in eastern India. That government primary school, I studied, hardly had any infrastructure, even without any roof and blackboard. My parents were not rich either. Does anyone think that I got "equal" opportunity as compared to St. Xaviers, Calcutta or DPS RK Puram, Delhi or Doon Schools? Then should people like me start demanding that students from villages also should get reservation? But the fact that even without reservation I reached at the top of my profession and ultimately attended some best universities in the world. I can successfully compete with any student, educated all through in Harvard or Stanford or Cambridge or so. No one gave me any reservation. For that I can keep my head high and dignity.

Caste is a real social problem. No one knows that better than a person from a village in India. But still I believe that reservation is not the solution. It will only create more division among people and encourage corruption and crime. Govt should set up good schools, make decent education available to all, campaign aggressively against social discriminations (all sorts of discrimination, including caste system, religion, gender etc). Nepotism and corrupt recruitment practices is very high in India which in term favors upper castes as they traditionally occupies most of the high positions, be it govt or private. But people from lower caste are equally corrupt when they get power. We know many examples for that. After all, we all (lower or upper caste) are coming from the same society, product of the same system. That explains why we don’t get Gold medal in Olympics or Nobel Prize even when there is no reservation. Upper caste professionals are not necessarily the better one.

Money and power can buy almost anything, starting from education (I mean degree), job, and government positions. IIT professionals are not necessarily more brilliant one as compared to that from many other engineering colleges, but surely IIT students are better trained, familiar with latest techniques (which is very different from "technology" and "science"). A student with higher marks does not mean that s/he is more intelligent. An IAS officer does not guarantee a better administration as compared to many non-IAS administrators. We severely lack credibility in most of our systems, starting from education to policy making. It’s a system failure. We need to make our system better, more accountable and credible. To do that, we need to have “good” people in policy making, i.e in politics.

This reservation controversy is a wake up call for all patriotic and eligible Indians. We are facing this situation and years of under-development mainly due to our corrupt, illogical, mediocre or below mediocre politicians. They are supported by equally corrupt and least efficient bureaucrats in Asia. These people thrive and can successfully impose their wrong policies on all of us because of wide spread illiteracy and then poverty (both are interconnected). The other main reason, we, the middle class, so called intellectual Indians do not like politics but no less corrupt if given a chance. We hate politics and politicians in public but do not have the courage and moral high ground to oppose them. Our education does not build our character but teaches us only to survive even without a backbone and dignity. In this whole process caste is irrelevant.
In general, only the worthless, criminal minded students enter politics in post-independent India. On top of that, some families treat this as a “family business” to maintain power and source of easy money (caste is irrelevant here). So they send their sons and daughters to US or Europe, buy some degrees and go back to India to keep the cycle of corruption and inefficiency going. This situation will not change until a good number of honest intellectuals take up politics as profession. May not be while studying or working, but may be after retirement. Else we will keep on blaming on politicians but situation will not change. These bunch of corrupt politicians control our everyday life while we hardly have any control over them (vote in India is nothing but farce though changing very slowly). So come on, join politics with a long-term plan and eradicate these parasites from policy making. If good people do not come, the positions will be occupied by these parasites and policies like reservation will be implemented.

In short, better to concentrate on primary schools and high schools rather than reserving seats in higher education, jobs etc. Introduce transparency in all selections (recruitments, promotions, scholarships, fellowships etc.). More importantly, good and honest people should join politics, at least after their retirement rather than sidelining themselves and allowing the highly vocal and corrupt people to occupy the policy-making positions.

Reservation policy is an attempt to hide incompetance and inabilities of our politicians

2006-06-13T18:40:00.014-04:00

Our government is run mainly by very mediocre to below mediocre politicians (and sometimes criminals). They prefer to implement very expensive, non-functional but populist schemes like “gramin rojgar yojona” to ensure 100 days of jobs for rural poor. In theory it’s attractive. But they hardly think about the reality and whether it works or not. As if rural people are more interested to get free meal for 100 days and then get starved for the rest of 265 days! Such schemes inherently fail to reduce poverty, as happened many times in the past (like garibi hatao by Indira Gandhi). Government is very reluctant to build infrastructure, opportunities and implement unbiased law and order system that in turn improves employment opportunities for people, reduce caste and religion based hatred, besides increase the rate of development at the macro level. Once economic prosperity sets in with proper law and order implementation, the menace of caste divide surely will be reduced.

The proponents of the reservation policy (including those for SC-ST) are hardly interested in logical debates and more enthusiastic about shouting and continuing the policy whatever may be the outcome. They are not at all interested to set a defined target or a time frame. None of the policy makers know when can they say the policy has fulfilled its target and stop such reservation. They also do not know how long will it take to achieve that target. They also don’t know how population growth (mainly among the communities targeted) and overall progress of the nation are taken into consideration to determine what benefit this policy is making to the target community and the nation. This policy is like a project without any specific, tangible objective and a deadline! Supreme Court asked some of these questions to Govt of India but never got any reply. But who cares about Supreme Court when these politicians can make any rule and force judiciary to follow those.

Unproductive schemes like “gramin rojgar yojona” (officially known as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, (A) and useless subsidies in many other govt departments suck up a huge portion of our national wealth and leave hardly anything for proper developmental projects like building schools in rural areas, improving infrastructure in primary and high school education (2). The relative prosperity of the “backward class” is not due to reservation policy but due to overall growth in India. Govt of India admitted, “the ST population accounts for 8.6% of the total population in the country. The condition of tribal people have no doubt improved over the years but their situation vis-a-vis the rest of the population in the country has worsened on all counts of development” (1).

Politicians do not like the idea to examine the whole reservation policy, particularly, what and how much “justice” and prosperity does this 60 years old policy brought to the target population. Initially it was suggested to be reviewed after 10 years. Now politicians dare not to touch their “backward” vote bank; and address questions regarding population growth, availability and sustainability of quality primary and high school education, transparency in all recruitments etc. Policies like reservation doesn’t encourage the "backward" people to think why majority of them are still “backward” even after about 60 years of “reservation”! Any civilized society must not have any divisive system based on caste or religion. This policy is strengthening that caste based hatred rather than solving it. The caste problem took such a huge proportion mainly due to utter failure of law and order machinery and judiciary, since independence.

If we addressed caste related violence and hatred mainly as law and order problem, we could have a better grip over it. Cheating, beating and ignoring a lower caste person by any upper caste people can be successfully addressed if we have an impartial and accessible law and order and police. We never tried to reform our colonial police or antique legal system. In the mean time some ambitious people from lower caste took this golden opportunity to promote their political agenda and grabbed power. But the irony is, once they achieve the status of a typical powerful person in India, they hate to consider themselves as “backward” and try their best to distance themselves from that community during any time but election time. They try their best to imitate the same uppper-caste people they were fighting so hard. In the process they did not work for the real backward people but try their best to ensure special privileges for subsequent generations. It creates more division, more hatred in the society and the problem continues.

It seems that "reservation" policy is no more an issue towards establishing social justice or upliftment of deprived people but a way to take revenge and get some extra benefits at the expanse of others and the country. It is an attempt to hide the inabilities of our politicians at the expanse of the prosperity of the nation and also real backward people in the country.

Research career in academics and other options: Think after you have leaped

2006-03-30T18:07:00.007-05:00

Some people who come to pursue research careers come mainly to satisfy their innovative thinking and love for doing something challenging. This is the motive for young people after finishing their school days and early part of their university lives, when their worldly needs are taken care of by their parents (at least in most of the Asian countries, which supply the majority of scientific workforce worldwide).
At the beginning of our formal education in schools, most of the intelligent students get attracted towards physics and mathematics, simply because they can do the experiments and get the results soon. That time they perform known experiments and become delighted when they observe the expected results that are taught in their classes. If they do not get the expected result, they start thinking and try to solve that. It motivates them and excites them to think novel. This lot of students should matter for research career, for the betterment of the society. At later life, these students find themselves at a disadvantageous position because their curiosity and intelligence. Their thoughtful nature dent to their academic results. A fraction of them become successful to adjust to the system and score higher marks while most of them get lost. Naturally, in higher education and research, mainly the students with mechanical thinking, mostly unable and sometimes scared to question existing knowledge and/or authority, are the overwhelming majority. Our Education system favours the rule of mediocrity by replacing genuine talents with private tuition and coaching enabled students with great mugging up ability.
It’s not very surprising that the quality of Indian research is going down day by day despite of much better monetary support from Government these days (1, 2, 3). Even the highly hyped Indian institutes and research organizations are nothing more than teaching institutes. They enjoy special status mainly due to their ability to send students to manpower starved Western countries, not for their ability to innovate or invent. No wonder India is among the least innovative countries in the world.
The only research organization that went public scrutiny is DRDO, the much hyped organization for its many high profile projects. DRDO failed miserably so far accountability is concerned (1, 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2, 3, 4).
If some of the innovative/novel thinkers still manage to get a PhD, they realized that life, as a “researcher”, is a pathetic journey ahead. The dream they once had, lost since long. Now they are forced to think as “others” think, they are forced to do as “others” do. Most of the time they are simply the extension of hands for their bosses, particularly as postdoc and PhD candidates. Their “independent thinking” is welcome so long it matches with that of the authorities/boss. Then they realize that this was not their dream when they decided to join research. They also realize that they are deviating from their dream day by day! The worldly matter also does not look good for them. Parents are long gone. Now they need to support themselves and their families and also face the consequences to satisfy their curiosity, which drove them to take research as their career in the first place. Research is no more the "search for truth” but only to publish and get grants. Most of the time it’s to generate data for data sake, without having a long-term goal and without asking what the society will get for such an “academic research” (mainly for government funded research institutes).
Salary is at its minimum as compared to other “equivalent” professions. Mentoring good students or, in other words, managerial skills are almost absent in the field of academic research. Quality of life is at its lowest. The demand (responsibilities) of the profession is too high while accountability is at its lowest (this also explains why salary is low). They hardly can devote time and also money for family duties, hobbies etc. Most of such people are forced to work for more than 10-12 hours a day on a regular basis, even without proper weekends, besides the fact that many also cannot go their home (country) for several years (while doing postdoc, PhD abroad). This picture is more or less true for USA and majority of Asian countries that follow the American model or crowded by US trained “scientists”. Picture in west European research labs are a bit different, but still have many of the foresaid problems.
In this backdrop we need to think does it worth to continue the path of “research” and if not, what options do we have. The answer varies from person to person depending on their history, ability and ambition (both research and quality of life wise). If a person got some good publications and good “pedigree” at an early stage of his/her career, then s/he has an advantage to continue to pursue academics or institutional research career. Even then some facts argue against that. To me, it seems that to pursue research career in academics is not worth it, if you are not highly motivated (not in terms of time spent in the lab, as meant by majority of US advertisements for postsocs, but productivity and own satisfaction-wise).
The best and ideal way to change the situation is to join politics to enter in policy making. A couple of good scientists hardly matter for the society or the country or even for the research community. Until or unless we can make a system that reward novel thinking in both education and research, we cannot utilize our able manpower and other resources to the fraction of its potential.
In more practical term, we can shift to other professions that are related to science (at least to have an entry). If we cannot change the system now, we can compromise our dreams for the time being. After all these experiences, we are no more the ideal thinker as we used to be in our teens. We can successfully use our skills in many other professions.
The most evident is to join industrial research. Though you cannot expect groundbreaking research there, but at least you will be better paid to have a decent life.
Once you have some experience about practical problems in a real world, you are ready to venture out for jobs, e.g consultancy. Academic degrees are mere decorative in almost every field in real sense. There are too many venture capitalists to invest good amount of money if you have a sound plan and product/service to offer. To evaluate your plan and the quality of your intended product/service, you need some experience in market/business, I think.
If you have some alternative skills, like photography, debating ability etc, then there are many more options open. But you need to have a stable flow of money from some other source, at least initially.
Novel thinkers joined research mainly to satisfy their intellectual ego and love for doing something challenging. Policy makers should ensure that. Else many able candidates will leave education and research while whole society will suffer due to reign of mediocrity and dishonesty in the long run. At the personal level, the consequences for not trying are far greater than the risk for trying. “I cannot do much” also must not be the excuse for not trying at all.